Daniel Philippe
Well-known member
How many species in the mexicanus/major complex ?
In the sixties/seventies we were told that we had 2 species http://elibrary.unm.edu/sora/Auk/v105n03/p0516-p0528.pdf, and today most checklists reflect this.
Then we had this abstract of the 123rd Stated Meeting of the American Ornithologists' Union (23 - 27 August 2005) at the University of California Santa Barbara, CA:
302 Wehtje, Cacosta & Klicka
Phylogeography of two closely related and expanding species: the Great-tailed and Boat-tailed grackles.
WALTER WEHTJE, California State Univ., Northridge, CA, JEFFREY M. CACOSTA and JOHN KLICKA, Marjorie Barrick Mus., Las Vegas, NV.
The Great-tailed (Quiscalus mexicanus) and the Boat-tailed (Q. major) Grackles were considered 1 species as recently as 1957, but were split into distinct species based on differences in morphology, behavior and vocalizations. The larger Q. mexicanus generally prefers upland environments, while the smaller Q. major is found predominantly in marshes. The vocalizations and courting displays of males are noticeably different. During the past 100 yr both species have expanded their distributions in North America, with Quiscalus mexicanus expanding northward from Mexico into the central and w. U.S., and Q. major along the Atlantic coast and Gulf of Mexico into Texas and along the Atlantic coast as far as New York. This expansion has created a zone of overlap in their distributions in e. Texas and w. Louisiana, where hybrids have been documented. This study analyzes the relationship between these species using a sequenced mitochondrial DNA gene. Results show that Q. mexicanus is comprised of 2 well-defined clades, corresponding approximately with western (Q. m. nelsoni) and eastern (Q. m. monsoni and prosopidicola) subspecies, but these are not sister groups. Rather, the eastern clade of Q. mexicanus is sister to Q. major. Complicating matters, the boundary between the western and eastern forms of Q. mexicanus has been eroded by recent range expansion.
Today there is this short communication in The Condor Volume 110, Issue 1 February 2008:
http://cooper.org/COS/110_1/110_1abs21.pdf(I haven’t got the whole paper yet) confirming the above.
Do we know anything about Mexican ssp ? Do they fall in these groups ?
In the sixties/seventies we were told that we had 2 species http://elibrary.unm.edu/sora/Auk/v105n03/p0516-p0528.pdf, and today most checklists reflect this.
Then we had this abstract of the 123rd Stated Meeting of the American Ornithologists' Union (23 - 27 August 2005) at the University of California Santa Barbara, CA:
302 Wehtje, Cacosta & Klicka
Phylogeography of two closely related and expanding species: the Great-tailed and Boat-tailed grackles.
WALTER WEHTJE, California State Univ., Northridge, CA, JEFFREY M. CACOSTA and JOHN KLICKA, Marjorie Barrick Mus., Las Vegas, NV.
The Great-tailed (Quiscalus mexicanus) and the Boat-tailed (Q. major) Grackles were considered 1 species as recently as 1957, but were split into distinct species based on differences in morphology, behavior and vocalizations. The larger Q. mexicanus generally prefers upland environments, while the smaller Q. major is found predominantly in marshes. The vocalizations and courting displays of males are noticeably different. During the past 100 yr both species have expanded their distributions in North America, with Quiscalus mexicanus expanding northward from Mexico into the central and w. U.S., and Q. major along the Atlantic coast and Gulf of Mexico into Texas and along the Atlantic coast as far as New York. This expansion has created a zone of overlap in their distributions in e. Texas and w. Louisiana, where hybrids have been documented. This study analyzes the relationship between these species using a sequenced mitochondrial DNA gene. Results show that Q. mexicanus is comprised of 2 well-defined clades, corresponding approximately with western (Q. m. nelsoni) and eastern (Q. m. monsoni and prosopidicola) subspecies, but these are not sister groups. Rather, the eastern clade of Q. mexicanus is sister to Q. major. Complicating matters, the boundary between the western and eastern forms of Q. mexicanus has been eroded by recent range expansion.
Today there is this short communication in The Condor Volume 110, Issue 1 February 2008:
http://cooper.org/COS/110_1/110_1abs21.pdf(I haven’t got the whole paper yet) confirming the above.
Do we know anything about Mexican ssp ? Do they fall in these groups ?