Duck categorization (1 Viewer)

[MacNara]

This is an ID question, but not about a particular bird.

I just posted some photos of Baikal Teal to the gallery. While doing so, I realised that this duck has been given its own unique genus, Sibirionetta. I subscribe to 'Birds of the World' online, but there is no explanation of this classification change on the site.

In recent years, there seems to have been quite a bit of re-classification of ducks - e.g. Garganey going in to Spatula, along with most of the birds called 'xxx Teal', but Eurasian Teal remaining in Anas; the new grouping Mareca where Gadwall and Falcated Duck (née Teal) which are obviously related and flock together are put in with the two Wigeons; and so on.

I don't subscribe to professional level birding magazines which have presumably discussed these changes. I wonder if anyone could point me to a free or cheap online article that discusses recent changes in Duck categorization in a broad way, for a relative amateur such as myself?

 

[nartreb]

Wikipedia tells me that the reason for the splitting (technically, resurrection) of genus Sibirionetta was this paper:

https://zslpublications.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1469-7998.2009.00622.x

Seems to also be the reason for Garganey being moved, and I suspect it will address your other questions as well.

 

[MacNara]

Wikipedia tells me that the reason for the splitting (technically, resurrection) of genus Sibirionetta was this paper:

https://zslpublications.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1469-7998.2009.00622.x

Seems to also be the reason for Garganey being moved, and I suspect it will address your other questions as well.

Thanks for this.

However, having read the Abstract, I am not sure that this paper covers the question I have raised in sufficient detail. What I am interested in is why these splits have been so generally accepted by birding authorities - can two genes of mitochondrial DNA be enough? As I said, Birds of the World accepts the new genus name, but doesn't give any explanation as to why.

And is there nothing in the fifteen years since 2009? None of the three or four books I have which were published since 2016, split Anas in this way.

 

[delia todd]

Does this help at all: Baikal Teal - BirdForum Opus

 

[MacNara]

Does this help at all: Baikal Teal - BirdForum Opus

Hi Delia,

What I was hoping someone might be able to link to is a general article about duck re-classification over the last twenty years or so, as there seems to have been quite a lot of it. When I say 'general' I mean something that explains why the re-classification got going, for example, did the new possibilities of DNA analysis cause people to re-think, or did the new possibilities of DNA analysis allow people to check doubts and problems that they already had?

There are some things about the re-classification that interest me - for example, falcation, the longer decorative wing feathers, is shown by Gadwall, Falcated Duck, Baikal Teal and Garganey, yet they are now in three different genus where other members don't show this - and the black 'bottom' of Gadwall along with the falcation seems similar to the black 'bottom' and falcation (similar orange-black colouration) of Baikal Teal but they are set apart.

I think I am educated enough to understand the paper that nartreb linked to in post #2, but they want USD$29 for me to read it and USD$49 to download it. And it's from 2009, so I think (assume, maybe wrongly) things have become more detailed since then.

If the forum was busy, I perhaps wouldn't bother people with this, but...

 

[Mike Earp]

Hi Delia,

What I was hoping someone might be able to link to is a general article about duck re-classification over the last twenty years or so, as there seems to have been quite a lot of it. When I say 'general' I mean something that explains why the re-classification got going, for example, did the new possibilities of DNA analysis cause people to re-think, or did the new possibilities of DNA analysis allow people to check doubts and problems that they already had?

There are some things about the re-classification that interest me - for example, falcation, the longer decorative wing feathers, is shown by Gadwall, Falcated Duck, Baikal Teal and Garganey, yet they are now in three different genus where other members don't show this - and the black 'bottom' of Gadwall along with the falcation seems similar to the black 'bottom' and falcation (similar orange-black colouration) of Baikal Teal but they are set apart.

I think I am educated enough to understand the paper that nartreb linked to in post #2, but they want USD$29 for me to read it and USD$49 to download it. And it's from 2009, so I think (assume, maybe wrongly) things have become more detailed since then.

If the forum was busy, I perhaps wouldn't bother people with this, but...

The paper is freely available here (password 2009). See also this.

 

[foresttwitcher]

Mac, you may find something in this thread in the Taxonomy sub-forum - good luck, it looks daunting on a quick scan: Anatidae

 

[MacNara]

The paper is freely available here (password 2009). See also this.

Thank you very much!

 

[MacNara]

Mac, you may find something in this thread in the Taxonomy sub-forum - good luck, it looks daunting on a quick scan: Anatidae

Thanks very much to you also. I basically only look at the ID forum - if I looked at the others, I would have no free time at all to go out and actually look at birds! This is a great thread, even if, as you say, a bit daunting.

 

[MacNara]

Wikipedia tells me that the reason for the splitting (technically, resurrection) of genus Sibirionetta was this paper:

https://zslpublications.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1469-7998.2009.00622.x

Seems to also be the reason for Garganey being moved, and I suspect it will address your other questions as well.

With the free link posted by Mike Earp in post #6, I have been able to read this paper. As you say it is absolutely the core. Thank you very much for pointing it out.

I am lucky to have a local city pond which gets a fair range of ducks and other things, and because of varied habitat I am nearly up to 150 species of all kinds of bird for the location, even though the basic circuit around the main pond (and two others which enclose two ancient tumuli) is only 2km. (Attached - blue plus green is the 2km basic circuit, and red the bit for a nice day. The pond was mentioned in Japanese poetry in the eighth century - it's right next to (part of) Japan's first permament capital from that era. It's also next to the largest shopping mall in our city. It's also about 500m from where the former PM Abe was assassinated last July. If he'd come to look at birds, instead of spouting politics from the back of a truck, he'd still be alive.



The birding has become a bit strange over the fifteen years I have been going to this spot, mainly (we think), but not only, because the climate has changed - today is the last day of November, and so it's now official that this is the hottest November in 70 years of records; in the last year, five months have been in the hottest five records ever for the month, and three more in the top ten. The last three years have been the equal hottest on record. So no swans in the winter because no snow these days, and the over-wintering birds arrive later and later.

Anyway: sincere thanks again to nartreb, Delia, Mike and foresttwitcher

A few photos from Monday.

 

[Joern Lehmhus]

There are some things about the re-classification that interest me - for example, falcation, the longer decorative wing feathers, is shown by Gadwall, Falcated Duck, Baikal Teal and Garganey, yet they are now in three different genus where other members don't show this - and the black 'bottom' of Gadwall along with the falcation seems similar to the black 'bottom' and falcation (similar orange-black colouration) of Baikal Teal but they are set apart.

Hi MacNara,

i only now saw your question , if I had seen it earlier , i´d have sent you the link to the paper ...

But please note that the long decorative feathers you refer to are tertials in falcated duck and gadwall, and scapulars in Garganey and Baikal teal - so they are not the same feathers....

 

[MacNara]

But please note that the long decorative feathers you refer to are tertials in falcated duck and gadwall, and scapulars in Garganey and Baikal teal - so they are not the same feathers....

Thanks Joern: that's why I refer to myself as an amateur; it's not false modesty, but real modesty.

 

[MacNara]

Nartreb and others: I have now read the paper you linked to and it is very helpful. Thanks very much.

I wish I was better at remembering binomials, in which case the paper would be even more useful (I read it with a bird list open in another window) - for some reason I have no problem remembering the English and Japanese names of birds, but the binomials never stick, even though my school insisted we all did Latin for five years.

===

Apologies to those who think my post #10 about my local spot is off-topic - mea maxima culpa (some Latin stuck; I'm just old enough to have been brought up as a Catholic with the Latin mass, which ended when I was 12). But this small spot has brought me so much pleasure over the fifteen or so years since I have been going there, that I often feel moved to celebrate it.

If you look at the aerial view in post #10, the pond is the brown at the top and green at the bottom square thing in the centre (the two parts are actually divided). Then you will see three keyhole-shaped green objects surrounded by moats. These are tombs of aristocrats or rulers from the sixth, seventh, eighth centuries. These are managed by the Imperial Household Agency. What matters about them from a birder's perspective is that they are 'no-entry' woodland spots so that birds that breed there are safe from disturbance by humans (thought not by weasels and snakes). They are, if you like, mini nature reserves. Europeans reading here will be familiar with tumulus graves, but these in Japan are enormous. Each gray dot in the aerial view is a house, maybe ten or twenty metres by ten or twenty, so you can see that the graves here in Nara Japan are 100m or more in each direction, and are also mounds, so maybe thirty or so metres high. Then around them there are rice fields, vegetable fields bamboo forest and reedbeds, so there is a great variety of habitat in a small area.

And it's all in the centre of a city of 400,000.

At one point in the early 20th century, the Japanese government was planning to allow building which would have obliterated the site of the old capital, but a man called Tanada Kajuro protested about this. Eventually he committed suicide in the traditional Japanese way and the government left the site empty, perhaps out of superstition, and eventually it was declared a national historic protected area. There is a fullsize bronze statue of Tanada in the park area today. Two years ago, a Eurasian Bittern spent a couple of months in the reedbeds a few tens of metres from his statue, so I think we have to thank him too, although his motive was history rather than nature.

===

I don't want to be too greedy, but is there a site or a paper which explains the process whereby research like this ends up with new genus or species which are generally agreed - a sociology of birding question, I guess.

 

[THE_FERN]

I don't want to be too greedy, but is there a site or a paper which explains the process whereby research like this ends up with new genus or species which are generally agreed - a sociology of birding question, I guess.

Well it depends... Basically, the different authorities (IOC or whatnot) have committees of experts who decide what they think and then it gets added to their list or not. As an example you can read transcripts of SACC proposals and discussions on web: they vote.

The crucial points which everyone ignores are: what is a "species" is subjective, our understanding will change through time and it's up to you whether or not you agree. In some sense people do understand the latter as listers tend to choose one list or another to follow (e.g. Cornell Vs IOC) but more generally they don't question the experts (e.g. I see yelkouan, Balearic Shearwaters might be lumped again... What do -you- believe?)

Some on this forum look forward to the day when there is one list to rule them all. I do not because it entirely ignores the subjectivity of the process and also the non-equivalence of different biological forms (species, or genera or whatever). Non-equivalence because: species are not defined with respect to some measurable criterion like genetic divergence (different species are different genetic distances apart), and how do you compare differences in one key trait (e.g. song) with those in another (nest form)?

Edit: PS wouldn't waste too much time on scientific names. They're gonna keep changing. Common names will be more stable as long as we can keep (e.g. SACC's) sticky fingers away. We already have scientific names which are meant to reflect phylogenetic relationships. We don't not need common names to do this too. Can we please have the clear separation of powers: the common name is "just" an identifier---please do not commandeer it to do another job too