Question about Eastern Black-eared Wheatear (1 Viewer)

[Andy Adcock]

Please make allowances here, I'm not a scientist so my questions may be dumb.

Here in Cyprus, the black throated form of the above is regular but I can't find any information regarding the distribution of that form.

This form hasn't been alloted sub-specific status, how does this variation persist, there has to be a gene which is passed on? Where does that gene predomonate and why doesn't distinct, morphology, guarantee, sub-specific status?

 

[Jacana]

As far as I'm aware there's no definitive study that has looked at the cause for the difference, however it is likely to be a polymorphism (like, say eye colour in humans) that might be governed by a few alleles and not necessarily a difference between subspecies per se.

There's a relatively new research group that is using these wheatears as a study system and they're investigating the genomic patterns of colouration, so I fully expect some studies to come out on this in the future.

 

[Andy Adcock]

Cheers Will.

 

[Jacana]

No problem. It's funny because it's something that I was actually thinking about myself this weekend after seeing my first Western Black-eareds.

 

[Andy Adcock]

No problem. It's funny because it's something that I was actually thinking about myself this weekend after seeing my first Western Black-eareds.

And I just had my first Eastern, black throated form.

 

[Andy Adcock]

Here's a terrible record shot from my pocket camera.

 

[MJB]

As far as I'm aware there's no definitive study that has looked at the cause for the difference, however it is likely to be a polymorphism (like, say eye colour in humans) that might be governed by a few alleles and not necessarily a difference between subspecies per se.

There's a relatively new research group that is using these wheatears as a study system and they're investigating the genomic patterns of colouration, so I fully expect some studies to come out on this in the future.

This paper provides a hypothesis:
Schweizer, M, V Warmuth, NA Kakhki, M Aliabadian, M Förschler, H Shirihai, P Ewels, J Gruselius, RA Olsen, H Schielzeth, A Suh and R Burri. 2019. Genome-wide evidence supports mitochondrial relationships and pervasive parallel phenotypic evolution in open-habitat chats. Mol. Phyl. Evol. 139: doi.org/10.1016/j.ympev.2019.106568.
MJB