Hi Friends,
I have just had a paper published in the refereed journal The Open Ornithology Journal showing that all the splits proposed in Albatross species over the last 30 years and unjustified and that in terms of the multidimensional Biological Species concept, only 12 species should be recognised. One notable feature of this paper is that as far as I know, it is the first published paper in ornithology that uses the concept of epigentics. If anyone would like the pdf, please reply privately to me.
Thanks,
Dr John Penhallurick
86 Bingley Cres
Fraser A.C.T. 2615
Australia
email:jpenhall@bigpond.net.au
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Hi John,
I don’t understand where you got the number 12 from? Even the most ‘conservative’ count gets me to 13, IOC 21 and the most ‘progressive’ count 24 (or if you count the suggested Phoebastria albatrus split, then 25). Maybe I missed an important point in your review?
traditional IOC progressive 1 1 1 Phoebastria immutabilis Laysan Albatross 1 1 1 Phoebastria nigripes Black-footed Albatross 1 1 1 Phoebastria irrorata Waved Albatross 1 1 1 Phoebastria albatrus Short-tailed Albatross 1 1 1 Diomedea exulans Wandering Albatross 1 1 Diomedea antipodensis Antipodean Albatross 1 Diomedea gibsoni Gibson’s Albatross 1 1 Diomedea amsterdamensis Amsterdam Albatross 1 1 Diomedea dabbenena Tristan Albatross 1 1 1 Diomedea epomophora Southern Royal Albatross 1 1 Diomedea sanfordi Northern Royal Albatross 1 1 1 Phoebetria fusca Sooty Albatross 1 1 1 Phoebetria palpebrata Light-mantled Albatross 1 1 1 Thalassarche melanophris Black-browed Albatross 1 1 Thalassarche impavida Campbell Albatross 1 1 1 Thalassarche cauta Shy Albatross 1 Thalassarche steadi White-capped Albatross 1 1 Thalassarche eremita Chatham Albatross 1 1 Thalassarche salvini Salvin’s Albatross 1 1 1 Thalassarche chrysostoma Grey-headed Albatross 1 1 1 Thalassarche chlororhynchos Atlantic Yellow-nosed Albatross 1 1 Thalassarche carteri Indian Yellow-nosed Albatross 1 1 1 Thalassarche bulleri Buller’s Albatross 1 Thalassarche spec. nov. Pacific Albatross 13 21 24
Cheers,
Nikolas
Hi John,
I read your paper with much interest, thanks.
I have to say though that I disagree with your argument that the lowest difference between conventional Thalassarche species should be the limit for speciation within that genus. That also seems like an arbitrary cut off based purely on historical morphological taxonomy. In fact it seems probable that the majority of avian splits will be amongst closely related species, while species that have been traditionally viewed as separate species will be more distantly related because their morphological differences will be greater. So that criteria will usually lead to a rejection of new splits in favour of conventional taxonomy.
It sounds to me like you’re saying that many of the new species do have morphological differences, genetic differences, geographical isolation and are distinct populations, but you don’t think those differences are big enough to constitute species status, but your definition of a big enough difference for species status is the distance between conventional species, and this is an arbitrary measure, just like the ones you’re criticising.
I also thought you dismissed Rains et al. rather quickly, without addressing any of the arguments for why non-coding mtDNA is better for taxonomy. I don’t think it’s a case of “one metric didn’t work so we’ll try another,” but rather there are good reasons why non-coding mtDNA gives more precise answers than cytB, and when I look at the Rains et al. data, I find the uniqueness of D. amsterdamensis haplotypes compelling. I agree with you about the claim you mention of species divergence 1000 years ago being questionable (in Phoebastria), but Rains et al. is providing evidence for a divergence over 200,000 years ago, which seems to me long enough for a population to be isolated to be regarded as a species – and I would argue that the fact that the cytB shows only small differences with closely related species is a reason why non-coding mtDNA evidence is better than cytB. I was under the impression (and I’ll have to check my text book when I get home) that cytB is usually most informative for divergence at a genera level, rather than between closely related species.
Finally regarding the anecdote you offer of a D. antipodensis with identical markings to an Amsterdam Albatross being found at the Antipodes Islands. I wonder if you can give the reason how it was known to be an Antipodan Albatross and not an Amsterdam Albatross? Was it merely assumed to be Antipodan because of the location and the rarity of Amsterdam Albatross, or was there a more definitive reason for rejecting that it actually was the bird that it had all the distinguishing features of?
Kind Regards,
Jeremy O’Wheel
On Sun, Jul 29, 2012 at 1:09 PM, John Penhallurickwrote:
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