Abstract
The ranges of the great tit Parus major and the Japanese tit P. minor overlap in the middle Amur region, where hybridization of these two species occur. These species have contacted for nearly a century on the western slope of the Malyi Khingan Ridge (the central part of the sympatry zone), but the great tit has colonized territories to the east of the ridge only in the last two decades. The percentage of the P. minor’s allele of intron 2 of the mioglobin gene has significantly increased from 8.9% in the west to 27.8% in the east in phenotypically major’s populations. Thus, the percentage of foreign mtDNA in P. major populations did not change significantly from west (6.2%, n = 120) to east (3.2%, n = 61). Simultaneous use of two genetic markers (one nuclear and the other mitochondrial) supports our conclusion on strong introgression in the populations of both species, which nevertheless maintain their morphological specificity in the contact zone.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Gill, F.B., Local Cytonuclear Extinction of the Golden-Winged Warbler, Evolution, 1997, vol. 51, pp. 519–525.
Rohwer, S., Bermingham, E., and Wood, C., Plumage and Mitochondrial DNA Haplotype Variation across a Moving Hybrid Zone, Evolution, 2001, vol. 55, no. 2, pp. 405–422.
Mayr, E., Animal Species and Evolution, Cambridge: Harvard Univ. Press, 1963.
Panov, E.N., Gibridizatsiya i etologicheskaya izolyatsiya u ptits (Hybridization and Ethological Isolation among Birds), Moscow: Nauka, 1989.
Stepanyan, L.S., Nadvidy i vidy-dvoiniki v avifaune SSSR (Superspecies and Sibling Species in Avifauna of the Soviet Union), Moscow: Nauka, 1983.
Smirenskii, S.M., Ecological Geographical Analysis of Avifauna of the Middle Amur River Area, Extended Abstract of Cand. Sci. (Biol.) Dissertation, Moscow, 1986, p. 23.
Nazarenko, A.A., Val’chuk, O.P., and Martens, I., Secondary Contact and Overlap of Parus major and P. minor Populations in the Middle Amur River Basin, Zool. Zh., 1999, vol. 78, no. 3, pp. 372–381.
Fedorov, V.V., Formozov, N.A., Surin, V.L., et al., Genetic Consequences of Hybridization between Parus major and P. minor in the Middle Amurland, Zool. Zh., 2006, vol. 85, no. 5, pp. 621–628.
Smirensky, S.M., About Systematic Position of the Great Tits in Soviet Far East, in Tez. dokl. 7-i Vses. orn. Konf. (Proc. 7th All-Union Ornithol. Conf.), Kiev: Nauk. Dumka, 1977, part 1, pp. 25–26.
Kerimov, A.B. and Formozov, N.A., Zones of Secondary Contacts In Ring Range of the Great Tit (South-Western Turkmenia, Amur River Area), Dokl. Mosk. Obshch. Ispytaleley Priridy, Zool. Bot., Moscow, 1986, pp. 27–31.
Formozov, N.A., Kerimov, A.B., and Lopatin, V.V., New Hybridization Zone of the Great Titmouse and Parus bokharensis in Kazakhstan and the Relationships between Forms of Parus major Superspecies, Gibridizatsiya i problema vida u pozvonochnykh (Hybridization and the Problem of Species in Vertebrates), Transections of the Zoological Museum of Moscow State University, Rossomolino, O.L., Panov, E.N., and Tomkovich, P.S., Eds., 1993, vol. 20, pp. 118–145.
Kvist, L., Martens, J., Higuchi, H., et al., Evolution and Genetic Structure of the Great Tit (Parus major) Complex, Proc. R. Soc. London, 2003, vol. 270, no. 1523, pp. 1447–1454.
Kvist, L., Martens, J., Nazarenko, A.A., and Orell, M., Paternal Leakage of Mitochondrial DNA in the Great Tit (Parus major), Mol. Biol. Evol., 2003, vol. 20, no. 2, pp. 243–247.
Ericson, G.P. and Johansson, U.S., Phylogeny of Passerida (Aves: Passeriformes) Based on Nuclear and Mitochondrial Sequence Data, Mol. Phylogenet. Evol., 2003, vol. 29, pp. 126–138.
Pudovkin, A.I., Zaikin, D.V., and Tatarenkov, A.N., DBOOT Computer Software for Calculation of Nei’s Genetic Distance and Genetic Identity and Their Bootstrapped Confidence Intervals, Russ. J. Genet., 1996, vol. 32, no. 7, pp. 888–891.
Zaykin, D.V. and Pudovkin, A.I., MULTTEST Computer Software—Calculation of the Values of Statistical Significance at Multiple Testes, Russ. J. Genet., 1991, vol. 27, no. 1, pp. 2034–2038.
Zaykin, D.V. and Pudovkin, A.I., Two Programms to Estimate Significance of Chi-Square Values Using Pseudo-Probability Test, J. Heredity, 1993, vol. 84, p. 152.
Kerimov, A.B. and Banin, D.A., Ecology of Transbaikalian Great and White Belly Tits in Their Cohabitation Zone, in Ptitsy Sibiri (Birds of Siberia), Proc. 11th Sib. Ornit. Conf., Gorno-Altaisk, 1983, pp. 138–140.
Perrins, C.M. British Tits, London: Collins, 1979.
Panov, E.N., Interspecies Hybridization in Birds: Evolution in Action, Priroda, 2001, no. 6, pp. 35–43.
Chetverikov, S.S., On Certain Aspects of the Evolutionary Process from the Standpoint of Modern Genetics, Zh. Eksp. Biol., Ser. A, 1926, pp. 3–54.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Additional information
Original Russian Text © V.V. Fedorov, V.L. Surin, O.P. Valchuk, L.V. Kapitonova, A.B. Kerimov, N.A. Formozov, 2009, published in Genetika, 2009, Vol. 45, No. 7, pp. 881–892.
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Fedorov, V.V., Surin, V.L., Valchuk, O.P. et al. Maintaining morphological specificity and genetic introgression in populations of the great tit Parus major and the Japanese tit P. minor in the middle Amur region. Russ J Genet 45, 771–780 (2009). https://doi.org/10.1134/S1022795409070023
Received:
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1134/S1022795409070023