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somali sparrow? (1 Viewer)

Fink

Well-known member
Some days ag, I asked about the difference between house and somali sparrow.




These shots I did in Samburu/Buffalo Springs Nationalpark.

Is this bird a house sparrow or a somali sparrow?

Thx for helping
 

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I am not familiar with Somali sparrows and know that house sparrows have in recent decades moved throughout Kenya, assumedly radiating inland from Mombasa on the coast. That said, from online photos of the former, it seems that they don't have a wing-bar, while your bird does. Not sure if that makes them/it house sparrows or not.
 
My thought,
at what point does this become a threat to Somali?



A

Well, a species is rarely a threat for another, it is mis-interpretation from conservationists to blame other species while human is the lone responsible for crash in biodiversity - I'm preparing a paper notably on that, I'll share with you when published if you like.

Now, for this particular case, I see hybrids were recorded in Somalia and Ethiopia, and at least in Somalia, Somali Sparrow is abundant and might be even increasing, so we should not worry AFAIK.
 
Well, a species is rarely a threat for another, it is mis-interpretation from conservationists to blame other species while human is the lone responsible for crash in biodiversity - I'm preparing a paper notably on that, I'll share with you when published if you like.

Now, for this particular case, I see hybrids were recorded in Somalia and Ethiopia, and at least in Somalia, Somali Sparrow is abundant and might be even increasing, so we should not worry AFAIK.

What about Ruddy and White-headed Duck and Atitlan Grebe that hybrisied with Pied-billed and is now considered extinct?

It does happen and if House Sparrow continues to breed with Somali, we may end up with just a whole bunch of hybrids.


A
 
What about Ruddy and White-headed Duck and Atitlan Grebe that hybrisied with Pied-billed and is now considered extinct?

It does happen and if House Sparrow continues to breed with Somali, we may end up with just a whole bunch of hybrids.


A

What I mean is: this hybridization is a symptom of the problem, not the problem itself. If a bird, such Atitlan Grebe, has evolved separately from Pied-billed Grebe, it is due to specific characteristics of the habitat on its lake, and, therefore, it became better adapted to this habitat than regular Pied-billed with which it shares a recent ancestor.

Human has modified the habitat, making it less suitable for Attitlan Grebe and more suitable for Pied-billed Grebe. Hence the extinction of Attitlan G. But the cause of extinction, the problem, is the habitat modification, not the hybridization.

Generally speaking, human is creating the same landscape all over the World, right? In this type of landscape, we will have a little proportion of the species that will abound, and the rest will decrease at best, disappear at worst.

Now, what we see can be: a local bird species is replaced by a local invasive, by an exotic, or polluted genetically by a closely related other bird species. Those are the symptoms, the result of our impact on the natural habitats, and, again, not the cause of the problem.
 
Though Atitlan Grebe never really was a species - genetically, it was nested within Pied-billed.

It is possible indeed, but this was just an example, the principle I'm explaining is valid in all cases.

Take Ruddy Duck in Europe. We were scared of hybridization with White-headed Duck, but White-headed Duck population was already in very poor condition, largely extinct in many European and North African countries when Ruddy Duck started to spread from UK to mainland Europe.

Drying swamps and lakes, dams, human activities on water ponds as well as hunting/poaching and water pollutions made White-headed Ducks a threatened species in Western Palearctic. Introducing Ruddy Duck was not a good idea, but we cannot say that this introduction is the cause of the low population of White-heads. If White-headed Duck was having a healthy population, Ruddy Duck wouldn't be a problem.
 
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It is possible indeed, but this was just an example, the principle I'm explaining is valid in all cases.

Take Ruddy Duck in Europe. We were scared of hybridization with White-headed Duck, but White-headed Duck population was already in very poor condition, largely extinct in many European and North African countries when Ruddy Duck started to spread from UK to mainland Europe.

Drying swamps and lakes, dams, human activities on water ponds as well as hunting/poaching and water pollutions made White-headed Ducks a threatened species in Western Palearctic. Introducing Ruddy Duck was not a good idea, but we cannot say that this introduction is the cause of the low population of White-heads. If White-headed Duck was having a healthy population, Ruddy Duck wouldn't be a problem.


Surely range is the most important factor? Even a huge population can be contaminated by hybridisation eventually if range is limited?


A
 
Surely range is the most important factor? Even a huge population can be contaminated by hybridisation eventually if range is limited?


A

Well, restricted species are more sensitive to ecosystem modifications than widespread ones, obviously.

However, I'm not sure I explained properly my point. We are talking about genetic pollution; this can happen only with very closely related species, right?

Let's take a example with a restricted range species. Berthelot's Pipit is fairly restricted species, in the Macaronesia. It invaded those islands from Europe, from Tawny Pipit ancestor if I remember well. It adapted to many different habitats of the Canaries.

Now, migrant pipits visit the Canaries, such Tawny, Tree and sometimes others, but they cannot threat Berthelot, whatever the islands where it lives are small or not. Berthelot is familiar with Canarian habitats, while other are not that much. They cannot compete and threat Berthelot! In case Tawny hybridized with Berthelot, as they would mostly produce sterile youngsters (as our both Oxyura ducks - different species!), this is not a threat; the population is healthy enough not to be affected by a few hundreds individuals that would produce nothing. Couples of Tawny Pipits would either compete with Berthelot's and lose, as they are not as well as adapted (they don't have experience Berthelot's have), or they would manage to use a different ecological niche and create a new population, but then threatening no one.

This is true because Berthelot's has a healthy population.

Now, bring hundreds of European Bullfinches in Sao Miguel, and Azores Bullfinch would suffer! That bird was abundant all over the island, even considered as a pest for agriculture. It has been destroyed for that reason, while natural forest has been cleared, replaced by exotic trees. Population of Azores Bullfinch was a low a 2-300 hundreds not long ago. At that point, introducing European Bullfinch can destroy the local species, but I hope you see now that this is not the problem. Destroying the bird and its habitat was the problem!
 
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