Barn Owl (7 Viewers)

[Peter Kovalik]

Mansour Aliabadian , Mitochondrial DNA (CYTB & COX1) Divergences in Two Distinct, Old World and New World Barn Owls , International Conference 'Molecular Ecology , 2012-02-04
Abstract

 

[njlarsen]

That split has been hinted at forever. I wonder when someone will feel the data are sufficient to actually act on.

Niels

 

[mb1848]

As to "data showed no support for the recognition of Caribbean owl T. (f.) bargei, as a separate species. According to genetic divergence, it’s possible to introduced T. a. stertens as a separate species as well." This makes sense since Hartert only difference in his description of T. bargei (named for Mr. Harry Barge, Governor of the Dutch West Indies) was the very small size. But in his description of stertens he speaks of a vocal difference, (which is more likely to be from genetic differences than size(?). " one hears it snorting (hence stertens) round buildings and ruins, in gardens, etc. Hartert, Nov. Zool. V. 35. p. 98 1929."

 

[Mysticete]

As a friend reminded me, anyone can submit a proposal to AOU to change the taxonomy...

Not volunteering myself, however. I have enough work to do with marine mammals to tide me over for a long time...

 

[Richard Klim]

"According to genetic divergence, it’s possible to introduced T. a. stertens as a separate species as well." ...Hartert ...in his description of stertens he speaks of a vocal difference, (which is more likely to be from genetic differences than size(?). "one hears it snorting (hence stertens) round buildings and ruins, in gardens,..."

A Barn Owl with a coke habit...?

This might be consistent with the Christidis & Boles 2008 split of Eastern Barn Owl Tyto [alba] javanica (including ssp stertens):
www.birdforum.net/showpost.php?p=1864103&postcount=12

 

[Richard Klim]

Europe

Antoniazza, Kanitz, Neuenschwander, Burri, Gaigher, Roulin & Goudet (in press). Natural selection in a post-glacial range expansion: the case of the colour cline in the European barn owl. Mol Ecol. [abstract]

 

[Richard Klim]

Colour polymorphism

Charter, Leshem, Izhaki & Roulin (in press). Pheomelanin-based colouration is correlated with indices of flying strategies in the Barn Owl. J Ornithol. [abstract & preview]

 

[Richard Klim]

North America

Roulin & Randin 2015. Gloger's rule in North American Barn Owls. Auk 132(2): 321–332. [abstract]

 

[Richard Klim]

San-Jose et al

San-Jose, Ducrest, Ducret, Béziers, Simon, Wakamatsu & Roulin (in press). Effect of the MC1R gene on sexual dimorphism in melanin-based colorations. Mol Ecol. [abstract]

 

[Richard Klim]

Western North America

Huang, Cheng, Ritland, Ritland, Thomsen, Hindmarch & Martin (in press). Barn owls (Tyto alba) in western North America: phylogeographic structure, connectivity, and genetic diversity. Conserv Genet. [abstract]

 

[Richard Klim]

Mediterranean

Burri, Antoniazza, Gaigher, Ducrest, Simon, The European Barn Owl Network, Fumagalli, Goudet & Roulin (in press). The genetic basis of color-related local adaptation in a ring-like colonization around the Mediterranean. Evolution. [abstract] [supp info]

 

[l_raty]

Burri, Antoniazza, Gaigher, Ducrest, Simon, The European Barn Owl Network, Fumagalli, Goudet & Roulin (in press). The genetic basis of color-related local adaptation in a ring-like colonization around the Mediterranean. Evolution. [abstract] [supp info]

Not Mediterranean, but interesting to see that, based on microsats (Fig.S6), a bird from Singapore (Tyto alba javanica based on range) appears closer to a bird from Australia ("Tyto delicatula") than to any European/African Tyto alba.

 

[Peter Kovalik]

Gaigher, A., Burri, R., Gharib, W. H., Taberlet, P., Roulin, A. and Fumagalli, L. (2016), Family-assisted inference of the genetic architecture of major histocompatibility complex variation. Molecular Ecology Resources. doi: 10.1111/1755-0998.12537

abstract

 

[l_raty]

Roulin. 2016. Evolutionary trade-off between naturally- and sexually-selected melanin-based colour traits in worldwide barn owls and allies. Biol J Linn Soc.
[abstract]

(Also, not yet published, but sounds interesting:
Aliabadian, Alaei-Kakhki, Mirshamsi, Nijman, Roulin. [in press.] Phylogeny, biogeography and diversification of barn owls (Aves, Strigiformes). Biol J Linn Soc.)

 

[Peter Kovalik]

(Also, not yet published, but sounds interesting:
Aliabadian, Alaei-Kakhki, Mirshamsi, Nijman, Roulin. [in press.] Phylogeny, biogeography and diversification of barn owls (Aves, Strigiformes). Biol J Linn Soc.)

Available online 4 JUL 2016

[abstract]

 

[l_raty]

(Also, not yet published, but sounds interesting:
Aliabadian, Alaei-Kakhki, Mirshamsi, Nijman, Roulin. [in press.] Phylogeny, biogeography and diversification of barn owls (Aves, Strigiformes). Biol J Linn Soc.)

[pdf here] [supp. info.]

An interesting read, albeit it's a pity that they included Wink et al's sumbaensis and furcata cytb sequences in some of their analyses without checking them a bit more closely. A simple look at the first alignments produced by a BLAST search on the sumbaensis and furcata sequences would have immediately shown that there was a problem.

(Fig. S1 [in the supporting info pdf] offers an interesting example of the effects that this type of sequences can have on a tree reconstruction. sumbaensis and furcata belong respectively to the Australasian and American groups of barn owls, but Wink et al's cytb sequences both have their first 200-and-something base pairs that is [mainly] storm-petrel DNA. These sequences are attracted both towards their own respective barn owl group, because of their genuine Tyto part, and towards each other because of the storm-petrel DNA they share. Here, this resulted in the Australasian and American groups appearing sister with high level of support, each with its own chimeric sequence in basal position and de facto imposing a rooting to the group. Neither the sister-group relationship, nor the orientation of the two groups, and thus the relationships within them, can be trusted. [In particular, the rooting of the group including the sumbaensis sequence is obviously spurious.] IOW, the inclusion of these two chimeric sequences affected strongly a large portion of the reconstructed tree, with effects that went very far beyond their own position in the tree.)

But despite this, with this paper's data added to what was already available, it now seems wholly unquestionable that javanica (as well as stertens) belong with the 'delicatula' group, and outside of the alba group. Time to revisit the IOC/H&M species limits?

(I've attached single-gene trees generated from all available [and reasonably long] 16s, cox1, cyt-b and rag1 sequences of Tytonidae. Rag1 evolves slowly, and has little signal within Tyto; all three other genes clearly delineate three groups of barn owls, with S Asian birds all clustering with Australian birds.)

 

[Peter Kovalik]

(I've attached single-gene trees generated from all available [and reasonably long] 16s, cox1, cyt-b and rag1 sequences of Tytonidae. Rag1 evolves slowly, and has little signal within Tyto; all three other genes clearly delineate three groups of barn owls, with S Asian birds all clustering with Australian birds.)

:t: Thank you Laurent.

 

[njlarsen]

Is the map on this page correct? http://www.owlpages.com/owls/species.php?s=10

If so, there are no Barn Owls in most of east Asia, i.e., most of China and north of there? If so, Laurent's trees seem to be pretty conclusive regarding a 3-way split. If there are more northern birds still in need of sampling, then the jury still can be out a little longer.

I also noticed that the results included Tyto glaucops within the American clade, something that makes sense I believe.

Niels

Edit, confirmed the map on HBW-alive

 

[PScofield]

Laurent, So the only Cyt B sequence of Tyto alba furcata available is contaminated and the RAG1 of Tyto alba furcata shows no resolution!
This has interesting taxonomic implications. One could argue that the hypothesis that Tyto alba furcata forms a clade with the other North American taxa has never been tested and thus the naming of this clade "the furcata clade" and the North American taxon Tyto furcata is unproven. The fact that Tyto glaucops and Tyto rosenbergii cluster with Tyto alba s.l. in your cyt B analysis suggests to me that there is a lot more to be done on this before a consensus is reached. You showed what happens to the tree's morphology with the addition of contaminated sequence - what happens when you add previously unconsidered taxa??

Paul

 

[l_raty]

Laurent, So the only Cyt B sequence of Tyto alba furcata available is contaminated and the RAG1 of Tyto alba furcata shows no resolution!
This has interesting taxonomic implications. One could argue that the hypothesis that Tyto alba furcata forms a clade with the other North American taxa has never been tested and thus the naming of this clade "the furcata clade" and the North American taxon Tyto furcata is unproven. The fact that Tyto glaucops and Tyto rosenbergii cluster with Tyto alba s.l. in your cyt B analysis suggests to me that there is a lot more to be done on this before a consensus is reached. You showed what happens to the tree's morphology with the addition of contaminated sequence - what happens when you add previously unconsidered taxa??

Paul

Hi Paul,

I'm far from saying that a consensus can be reached easily on everything. In particular, if evidence not derived from DNA (e.g., morphology or behaviour) clearly supports the existence of a species limit between two taxa, I would not expect a consensus to be easily reached on whether a lack of divergence at one single genetic locus can be used to overturn this.

But here, I just fail to see any evidence (genetic or otherwise) supporting the species limit (as currently accepted by IOC/H&M; it's a group limit in Clements) between javanica and delicatula, and the inclusion of javanica and stertens in the otherwise allopatric alba group.

In support of splitting T. delicatula, IOC [here] cite Wink et al. 2004 [pdf] (who actually subdivided barn owls based on cyt-b sequences into "Australasia", "Europe, Africa", and "New World", which contradicts directly the treatment it is supposed to support); and Christidis & Boles 2008 [here] (who suggested splitting the Australasian populations as Tyto javanica, based on Wink et al's 2004 results; this contradicts the IOC treatment as well). H&M4 cited König & Weick 2008 (who wrote [on p.209]: "Mainly on the basis of DNA evidence, we distinguish [...] the Common Barn Owl Tyto alba (Europe, Africa, Madagascar, Asia south to India and Malaysia) [...] and the Australian Barn Owl Tyto delicatula (Australia, New Zealand and Polynesia)."; but no DNA evidence suggests that this might be correct; the Wink et al work on pp.40-63 of this work [separate pdf], based on cyt-b and rag1 sequences, did not include any sample from continental S Asia); and Wink et al 2009 [pdf] (who did not include any sample from continental S Asia in their analyses either).

IOW, the subdivision does not appear to be based on anything but DNA evidence; current DNA evidence indicates consistently that the limit is wrongly positioned; previously published evidence never indicated that it had to be positioned as it was; no other evidence that I can see contradicts this. If a currently accepted species limit has no objective base whatsoever and is contradicted by the available evidence, this species limit is a pure fantasy that (it seems to me) should be corrected.

Or is there an actual reason for the limit to be placed where it was, and that I am missing?

Laurent -