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Nashville Warbler split (1 Viewer)

If we just start renaming birds because their names "don't make sense" most of NA birds will have to be renamed. After all, Ring-necked Ducks don't have an obvious ringed neck, ovenbirds are not in Furnariidae, and how useful are names honoring ornithologists?

Of course. I never said all names have to be useful or descriptive of the bird or anything of the sort. I just meant I don't like some of the misleading names for narrow political subdivisions. Most birders prefer the names they grew up with, so there's a natural bias towards retaining current and more familiar names. But if you need to change a name, you don't have to be a slave to the traditional or familiar, you can consider something new and more appropriate if the old one has little to recommend it. But even I do like some arbitrary geographic names, e.g. Cape May Warbler and Baltimore Oriole--those have charm and appealing literary qualities that override objections based on their being arbitrary. (I had to suffer the agony of the change from Baltimore to Northern Oriole in the 80's, and believe me I don't want to go back!) But I don't see any redeeming qualities to the ones I listed.

And I never suggested we should start reforming names just because we find them arbitrary. Changing names creates confusion--that's why you'd only do it when you have to--you need a reason. But if you do have a reason, why not consider if a better name would be appropriate rather than trying to retain part of an old one just because it's the one you grew up with?

Best,
Jim
 
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Why not call it Eastern-Nashville Not-really-a-warbler-at-all-but-we-aren't-going-to-let-that-stop-us-from-calling-it-a-warbler? ;)

Chris

Nice name, but the punctuation needs some work. How about "Eastern (from an Amercentric point of view) Nashville (not-really-a-warbler-at-all-but-we-are-not-going-to-let-that-stop-us-from-calling-it-a-warbler) Warbler"?
 
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On a more serious note, do the two forms have separate wintering areas in Mexico? I have records of seeing Nashville Warbler along the Durango Highway and elsewhere in western Mexico, would necessarily refer to ridgwayi?
 
W Mexico

On a more serious note, do the two forms have separate wintering areas in Mexico? I have records of seeing Nashville Warbler along the Durango Highway and elsewhere in western Mexico, would necessarily refer to ridgwayi?
I think it would be fairly safe to assume that birds on the Durango Highway (and elsewhere in western Mexico) would be ridgwayi, eg, Curson 2010 (HBW15):
ibc.lynxeds.com/species/nashville-warbler-vermivora-ruficapilla

Also, Alderfer 2006 (Complete Birds of N America): "Eastern birds are circum-Gulf migrants... Western birds migrate through Southwest and along coast..."

Richard
 
Well, well, looks like somebody has time on his hands!

Unfortunately, not true, because I try to pay people the compliment of actually meaning what they write or say. This gets me into all sorts of difficulties, but I'm reliably assured that I would have more problems if I assumed the opposite!
MJB
 
Nice name, but the punctuation needs some work. How about "Eastern (from an Amercentric point of view) Nashville (not-really-a-warbler-at-all-but-we-are-not-going-to-let-that-stop-us-from-calling-it-a-warbler) Warbler"?

Could do with a few more hyphens in it;)

Chris
 
Of course. I never said all names have to be useful or descriptive of the bird or anything of the sort. I just meant I don't like some of the misleading names for narrow political subdivisions. Most birders prefer the names they grew up with, so there's a natural bias towards retaining current and more familiar names. But if you need to change a name, you don't have to be a slave to the traditional or familiar, you can consider something new and more appropriate if the old one has little to recommend it. But even I do like some arbitrary geographic names, e.g. Cape May Warbler and Baltimore Oriole--those have charm and appealing literary qualities that override objections based on their being arbitrary. (I had to suffer the agony of the change from Baltimore to Northern Oriole in the 80's, and believe me I don't want to go back!) But I don't see any redeeming qualities to the ones I listed.

And I never suggested we should start reforming names just because we find them arbitrary. Changing names creates confusion--that's why you'd only do it when you have to--you need a reason. But if you do have a reason, why not consider if a better name would be appropriate rather than trying to retain part of an old one just because it's the one you grew up with?

Best,
Jim

Had to point out that "Baltimore Oriole" was not named for the city of Baltimore, but rather for Lord Baltimore, whose major claim to fame seems to have been his gaudy orange and black garb. There is an American butterfly called the "Baltimore" for the same reason - it is black and orange. Thusly, the oriole name is has even more charm and literary quality than you realize!

Even more arbitrary too... but unless a major pre-Linnean taxonomic movement develops, we are just going to have to be used to arbitrary names. That said, I don't think I'd miss "Nashville" if it were to be changed.
 
Nashville/Calaveras Warblers

ONTBIRDS, 6 Feb 2013...
Subspecific identity of Sedgewick Nashville Warbler

OntBirders,

Back in early January when we posted about the Sedgewick warblers we asked for a Nashville Warbler feather if anyone found one. As you may recall, we suggested that the Nashville that we saw on January 2nd may have been a member of the western subspecies, ridgwayi (Calaveras Warbler). Field identification of Nashville subspecies is not trivial.

The western birds typically show more gray on the back than typical eastern birds, brighter yellow underparts and possibly a more extensive white vent - but these characters are variable and overlap between the subspecies seems possible from what we have read. Tail bobbing is typically more phrenetic than the nominate eastern subspecies and the video that Luc Fazio posted shows considerable tail bobbing consistent with our observations in the field. On January 7th, Brad Bloemendal found a small cluster of breast feathers consistent with Nashville Warbler and sent them to me. Scott Kelso and I were able to extract DNA from the bit of tissue on the feather bases and sequence two mitochondrial genes (cytB and COI). Based on this, we can now state that the Sedgewick Nashville Warbler was undoubtedly from the nominate eastern subspecies (ruficapilla). Since we used only mitochondrial DNA there is an outside chance the bird was a hybrid, but we view this as unlikely.
...
Thanks very much to everyone who sent us photos of this bird, to Luc for posting the video and to Brad for taking the time to collect the feathers and send them to us. We are happy to share raw sequence data or details on our identification methods if anyone contacts us privately.

Jeff Skevington, James Holdsworth and Richard Skevington
NBHC ID-FRONTIERS, 9 Feb 2013...
Nashville Warbler subspecies determined by DNA

Thanks to those who have commented on the Nashville Warbler DNA identification both privately and publicly. As Alan points out, until more research is conducted on the two Nashville subspecies, DNA identification may be the only way to definitively separate these taxa. There were indeed several of us who thought that this bird was a western Nashville (ridgwayi) but I put out the request for a feather knowing that it would never be documentable without further evidence.
It is good to now be able to state that it was almost certainly an eastern bird (I don't put much faith in the two bird theory but threw it out there as it is possible). This exercise has prompted interest in identifying another possible western Nashville vagrant and we will report on that if we are successful in obtaining sequence data.

Several people have asked how we went about doing the actual sequencing so I thought I would outline it briefly here for those who are interested. We are still quite far from a Star Trek tricorder for making these identifications but it can be done with a bit of effort using very little tissue (just a few breast feathers in our case).
First step is to extract genomic DNA using a kit. We then ordered primers and followed published cycling (PCR) conditions for two mitochondrial genes. PCR produces billions of exact copies of the target region of DNA. The target DNA is then cleaned up, tagged with fluorescent dyes (so each base pair is a different colour) and sequenced. Cost to hear is about 100 bucks. Once the primers are in the lab, it costs <40 bucks to do this. From here, anyone can do the analysis. I downloaded the cytochrome B data from GenBank, added our data, and ran the analysis on it (<http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/nuccore/?term=txid125952[Organism:noexp]>
is the link to all of the nucleotide data on GenBank - you can download all published sequences for particular genes from this page).
I aligned our data using a free program called Mesquite and analyzed the data using PAUP* (the free program TNT would also do the job). For the COI gene data it is possible to follow the same procedure.
However, a much easier method is to use the BOLD ID engine to identify the specimen (go to <http://www.boldsystems.org/index.php/IDS_OpenIdEngine> and paste in the sequence and it produces a tree based comparison of sequences along with your unknown sequence.

Here is the COI sequence of the Sedgewick Nashville Warbler if you want to try it yourself:

CTATACCTAATTTTCGGCGCATGAGCCGGAATAGTGGGTACCGCCCTAAGCCTCCTTATCCGAGCAGAACTAGGCCAACCCGGAGCCCTTCTGGGAGACGACCAAGTCTACAATGTAGTTGTCACGGCCCATGCCTTCGTAATAATTTTCTTTATAGTCATACCGATTATAATCGGAGGATTCGGAAACTGACTAGTTCCTCTAATAATCGGAGCCCCAGACATAGCATTCCCACGAATAAACAACATAAGCTTCTGACTACTCCCACCATCATTCCTTCTTCTACTAGCATCCTCCACAGTTGAAGCAGGTGTAGGCACAGGTTGAACAGTGTACCCTCCACTAGCTGGCAACCTAGCCCACGCCGGAGCCTCAGTCGACCTTGCAATTTTCTCTCTACATCTAGCTGGTATTTCCTCAATCCTCGGGGCAATCAACTTCATTACAACAGCAATCAACATGAAACCTCCTGCCCTATCACAATACCAAACCCCACTATTCGTCTGATCAGTACTAATCACTGCAGTTCTCCTGCTCCTCTCCCTCCCAGTCCTAGCTGCAGGAATCACAATGCTCCTCACAGACCGCAACCTCAACACTACATTCTTTGACCCTGCCGGAGGAGGAGATCCCGTCCTATACCAACATCTATTCTGATTCTTCGGACACCCAGAAGTCTACATCCTAATCCTA

Go to <http://www.boldsystems.org/index.php/IDS_OpenIdEngine>. Click the button "All barcode records on BOLD". Paste in this sequence.
Click Submit. It comes up with a table of closest matches. Click the button for tree based identification. Click View Tree. You should now see the unidentified Sedgewick warbler in red in the Vermivora ruficapilla clade. This is the eastern subspecies. Note that the Vermivora ruficapilla specimen in blue is the western subspecies. It is actually more closely related to Lucy's, Colima and Virginia's Warbler than to the eastern subspecies of Nashville according to this gene tree. The cytochrome B results show a similar relationship - the 2 Nashville Warbler species are not sister taxa. If one follows the phylogenetic species concept, data from these two genes clearly indicate that they should be treated as separate species. More work is clearly needed on these birds.

Good birding!
Jeff Skevington
Jeff et al.

Thanks for the details on your molecular analysis and methodology. There have been many voices for years in the West suggesting that "Calaveras Warbler" is not Nashville's closest relative, so it is neat to see this suggested in this tree. The distribution alone, the biogeography, makes no sense. No other warbler, and maybe no other passerine (?) has a disjunct east/west distribution like Nashville in the broad sense. I might be wrong on that, I did not rifle through maps to see if it is the case, although in the non-passerine department Willet comes to mind, and come to think of it Purple Finch is another that may be in a similar situation. The song, habitat and various other bits and pieces like the consistent and constant tail wagging all suggest Calavera's is sister to one of the western relatives, I wager that with nuclear DNA data and a robust analysis perhaps Virginia's will be the sister...but you never know. One avenue worth examining on the eastern "Nashvilles" in winter may be call note; we need a good bank of reference call notes to compare with but I think this will be a fruitful venture for those trying to separate eastern and western birds - and a lot easier and more direct than a molecular analysis. Here in central California our wintering birds are often not consistent tail waggers, and we feel they are more likely to be eastern birds. The proportion of eastern Blue-gray Gnatcatchers may also be elevated in the west in the winter, and call notes may be a key bit of data to gather on these creatures as well!

Regards,
Alvaro Jaramillo
Dear All,
...
There is one notion that I'd like to address: the idea that because taxa Y is not the closest genetic relative of taxa X (because Y is closer to taxa Z), that taxa X and taxa Y must be full species, and not subspecies of one species.

In our current example genetics say that eastern NAWA is not western NAWA's closest relative in that it is closer to LUWA, COWA, and VIWA. There is a scenario where the two NAWAs can still be considered one species: if LUWA, COWA, and VIWA (or more likely a common ancestor for these three taxa) evolved from western NAWA after the genetic split of western NAWA from eastern NAWA.

If this scenario were true, one might think that LUWA, COWA, and VIWA must then be subspecies of western NAWA. But speciation does not happen at the same rate, nor in response to the same triggers, across all organisms. It is possible that once the common ancestor of LUWA, COWA, and VIWA started to separate from western NAWA, it proceeded, due to a variety of potential environmental factors, to phenotypically (and vocally?) change at a faster rate than western NAWA proceeded to change from eastern NAWA. Such changes might outstrip the fairly steady changes in DNA to result in four phenotypically and behaviorally good species that are not very distinct, DNA-wise. Just look at large gulls to see a good example of this happening!

A similar situation seems to apply to Eurasian Teal, Green-winged Teal, and Speckled Teal (with Speckled Teal likely evolving from Green-winged to remain its closest relative), and the reasoning above (or an approximation of it) is one of the factors strongly considered by the AOU when last they visited the notion of splitting Eurasian and Green-wnged Teal, despite a huge genetic difference (5.8%, I recall).

I'd value feedback on what I've said - especially if i've got some of it wrong!
Cheers,
Martin Reid
 
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