general gull taxonomy

[Joern Lehmhus]

Hi all ,
is there any literature, giving the relations of all gulls (or most) ,based on DNA?

[Gentoo]

Good question. If I find any I will post it. I've read stuff but don't want to talk about it without posting anything.

[njlarsen]

Hebert et al 2004: Identification of birds through DNA barcodes, (available online in PLOS Biology) includes the North American species.

Cheers
Niels

[Joern Lehmhus]

Hi Niels, thanks for the link, found it!

Good luck Gentoo ,I hope you are more successfull than me... (Didn´t have much time to look for things)


What I was wondering,when I look at Larus gulls: seems to me there are 2 big groups : A group of gulls which develop a black (or brown or grey head in breeding plumage) and the group of big whiteheaded gulls ( most big Northern hemisphere gulls and the Kelp gull...

And then there are some odd species that do not seem to frit in one of these groups, Like for example Dolphin Gull;or Audouin´s Gull...

And then there are some that stand out in their groups (provided these really exist and are not entirely my imagination):

For example Larus ichthyaetus must be one from the blackheaded gull group, but whereas most are small, this has grown to be a giant?
or the other way round Common Gull Larus canus is more like one of the large whiteheaded gulls but dwarfed?

So I was curious if there´s something giving an overview onm Gull relations like there is on Anatidae , for example...

[Xenospiza]

There is a much better one: Pons et al, Phylogenetic relationships within the Laridae
(Charadriiformes: Aves) inferred from mitochondrial markers. It's more complicated than you'd guess!
Guess you'd like that article? Send me a pm/e-mail, I'll send it to you!

[Xenospiza]

I'll give a short review for the benefit of all later this evening!
OK, here goes:
The tree (based on mtDNA) can be represented as such:
Creagrus • (Rissa • {<Xema • Pagophila> • <Chroicocephalus • Saundersilarus • Hydrocoloeus • ‹Leucophaeus • (Ichthyaetus • Larus)›})>})

Support for Chroicocephalus, Saundersilarus and Hydrocoloeus is low.

The subgenera represent:
Chroicocephalus: "masked gulls" (e.g. Black-headed, White-headed, Grey-headed, Slender-billed)
Saundersilarus: Saunders's Gull
Hydrocoloeus: Little + Ross's Gull (makes sense!)
Leucophaeus: "hooded gulls" (America's: Laughing, Franklin's, South American 'grey' gulls)
Ichtyaetus: "black-headed gulls" (Palearctic: Pallas's, Audouin's, Mediterranean, White-eyed, Hemprich's)
Larus: white-headed gulls (with the band-tailed species basal)

I'm all in favour of renaming the genera once the uncertainties have been figured out: larophiles only like Larus (strict sense), while everyone likes the others, hahaha!

[Joern Lehmhus]

There is a much better one: Pons et al, Phylogenetic relationships within the Laridae
(Charadriiformes: Aves) inferred from mitochondrial markers. It's more complicated than you'd guess!
Guess you'd like that article? Send me a pm/e-mail, I'll send it to you!


Like it? i´d love it ...seems that would answer several of my Gull questions at once. I´ll send you a PM...

Thanks

Jörn