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Phylogeography of a vanishing North American songbird: the Painted Bunting (Passerina ciris)

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Abstract

The breeding distribution of Painted Buntings (Passerina ciris) is comprised of two allopatric populations separated by a 550-km distributional gap in the southeastern United States. Curiously, the boundary between the two recognized P. ciris subspecies does not separate the two allopatric breeding populations but instead runs roughly through the center of the interior population. Genetic relationships among these subspecies, and the allopatric breeding populations of Painted Bunting, have not been assessed. Given the recent decline in overall abundance of this species, such an assessment is warranted. We sampled birds from 15 localities (138 individuals) and identified 35 distinct haplotypes, six belonging to the Atlantic Coast population and 26 to the interior population, with three shared by both populations. AMOVA results showed that a significantly greater portion of the total genetic variance is explained when grouping birds by the interior and Atlantic Coast populations rather than by subspecies. Furthermore, our data indicate that the Atlantic Coast and interior populations represent independently evolving taxa, with no measureable gene flow between them. Although recently diverged (26,000–115,000 years ago), these isolated bunting populations represent incipient species. For development of conservation strategies, we suggest that the Atlantic Coast and interior populations be recognized as separate management units.

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Acknowledgments

Financial support for this project was provided by the Barrick Museum of Natural History and the Graduate & Professional Student Association of the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. We are grateful to Jeremy Batten and Kyle Kacy for field assistance. The authors thank Mercedes Foster, Stacy Mantooth, and Brian Smith for comments on an earlier version of this manuscript.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Life Sciences, University of Nevada, 4505 Maryland Parkway, Las Vegas, NV, 89154, USA

    Connie A. Herr

  2. Marjorie Barrick Museum of Natural History, University of Nevada, 4505 Maryland Parkway, Las Vegas, NV, 89154-4012, USA

    Connie A. Herr & John Klicka

  3. USGS Patuxent Wildlife Research Center, Warnell School of Forest and Natural Resources, The University of Georgia, Athens, GA, 30602, USA

    Paul W. Sykes Jr.

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  1. Connie A. Herr
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  2. Paul W. Sykes Jr.
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Correspondence to Connie A. Herr.

Appendix

Appendix

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Table 4 Population pairwise ΦST values
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Table 5 Specimen data
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Herr, C.A., Sykes, P.W. & Klicka, J. Phylogeography of a vanishing North American songbird: the Painted Bunting (Passerina ciris). Conserv Genet 12, 1395–1410 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10592-011-0237-6

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