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ZEISS DTI thermal imaging cameras. For more discoveries at night, and during the day.

Darwin Finches (1 Viewer)

Richard, right. The wording in the Uppsala story about L.A. was "who led the study" which I was a little too fast in getting converted to "lead author".

Niels
 
Welsh Peregrine said:
Anyone able to state what additional species are suggested by the authors?
Click to expand...
Geospiza difficilis =>
G. acutirostris Ridgway; Genovesa.
G. difficilis Sharpe; Pinta, Fernandina and Santiago.
G. septentrionalis Rothschild & Hartert; Wolf and Darwin.
​
G. conirostris =>
G. conirostris Ridgway; Española and Gardner.
G. propinqua Ridgway; Genovesa.
​
(This is in the freely accessible [supplementary text].)
 
Thanks Laurent for the link to the supplement.

For G. conirostris: several sources have a third subspecies, darwini which is described as having bill more similar to propinqua. Is that explicitly mentioned anywhere in the paper?

For G. difficilis: subspecies ranges are elsewhere given differently:
G. acutirostris Ridgway; Genovesa. (Not used by others)
G. difficilis Sharpe; Pinta, Fernandina and Santiago. (Genovesa and Pinta in Clements list and in Swach and Still)
G. septentrionalis Rothschild & Hartert; Wolf and Darwin. (all agree)
G. debilirostris: Santiago, Isabela, Fernandina (used by Clements list and Swach and Still)

Any comments to these differences?

Niels

Swach and Still is the field guide I have, they may just be following the Clements list.
 
They don't appear to have had samples of G. conirostris from Darwin.

G. difficilis:
- acutirostris Rdgw., 1894: type locality Tower Isld = Genovesa.
- difficilis Sharpe, 1888: type locality Abingdon & Charles Islds = Pinta & Floreana. Floreana may have been an error (Rotschild & Hartert, 1899).
- debilirostris Rdgw., 1894: type locality James Isld = Santiago.
- septentrionalis Rotsch. & Hart., 1899: type locality Wenman Isld = Wolf.
The ranges they gave (and which I cited above) are actually the localities of origin of their samples.
As their Genovesa samples clustered with no other G. difficilis, they had to resurrect a name (acutirostris) that had this island as type locality for them.
They did not have any sample of this species from Isabella; but Isabella is geographically surrounded by islands (Fernandina, Santiago and Pinta) that all appear to support populations of the difficilis group, and the birds there have been traditionally classified as the same subspecies as those on Fernandina and Santiago, so one might assume that these birds belong to the difficilis group as well.
debilirostris in the sense of Clements is not monophyletic in their analyses (the topotypical population is closer to nominate difficilis from Pinta than to the Floranea population).
 
Lamichhaney et al 2015

Richard Klim said:
Lamichhaney, Berglund, Sällman Almén, Maqbool, Grabherr, Martinez-Barrio, Promerová, Rubin, Wang, Zamani, Grant, Grant, Webster & Andersson (in press). Evolution of Darwin's finches and their beaks revealed by genome sequencing. Nature. [abstract & supp info]
Click to expand...
Lamichhaney et al 2015. Nature 518(7539): 371–375.

AOU-SACC...
158. Petren et al. (2005) showed that Geospiza difficilis might be polyphyletic, with the central island populations perhaps sister to most of the Darwin's Finches, although microsatellite and mtDNA differ in the pattern of relationship of different populations. Lamichhaney et al. (2015) proposed that difficilis consists of three species, with acutirostris of Genovesa and septentrionalis of Wolf and Darwin elevated to species rank. SACC proposal badly needed.

161. Petren et al. (2005) found that the Española population of Geospiza conirostris may be distinct enough to deserve separation as a species. Lamichhaney et al. (2015) proposed that conirostris consists of two species, with propinqua of Genovesa elevated to species rank. SACC proposal badly needed.
Click to expand...
 
Richard Klim said:
Lamichhaney et al 2015. Nature 518(7539): 371–375.
Click to expand...
[pdf]
...and, btw:
Richard Klim said:
Farrington, Lawson, Clark & Petren (in press). The evolutionary history of Darwin's finches: speciation, gene flow, and introgression in a fragmented landscape. Evolution. [abstract] [supp info]
Click to expand...
Farrington, Lawson, Clark & Petren. 2014. The evolutionary history of Darwin's finches: speciation, gene flow, and introgression in a fragmented landscape. Evolution 68(10):2932–2944.
[pdf]
 
Farrington et al (2014) propose that G. difficilis be split into two species, with the three islands of Genovesa, Wolf and Darwin inhabited by G. septentrionalis. So a less wide-ranging proposal than the Lamichhaney et al 2015, but that part does go in the same direction.

Niels
 
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