Hi Tony
Some problems with using mtDNA, and the methodology used by Cohen, were picked up in a discussion that stemmed from Cohen’s skua paper that you referenced see Braun & Brumfield, and it would appear the 0.44% divergence does not stand up to scrutiny : http:// www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1689160/pdf/ 9RJY8JW6PRM46DBQ_265_995.pdf
Most recently Chu, Eisenschenk & Zhu proposed a different phylogeny for Stercorariidae that had S. pomarinus as sister to all the ‘catharacta’ and not most closely related to C. skua! Which is now of course S. skua….. (ref: Zoological Journal of the Linnean Society, 2009, Volume 157, Issue 3, pg612-62).
We looked at skua phylogeny recently for a practical at CSU on the ornithology course – my head is still spinning!
Cheers
Mike
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