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Phylogenetic relationships of the extinct St Helena petrel, Pterodroma rupinarum Olson, 1975 (Procellariiformes: Procellariidae), based on ancient DNA

Welch, A.J.; Olson, S.L.; Fleischer, R.C.

Phylogenetic relationships of the extinct St Helena petrel, Pterodroma rupinarum Olson, 1975 (Procellariiformes: Procellariidae), based on ancient DNA Thumbnail


Authors

S.L. Olson

R.C. Fleischer



Abstract

Palaeontological studies show that three endemic procellariid seabird species became extinct on the remote island of St Helena in the South Atlantic Ocean. At least one of these, Pterodroma rupinarum Olson, 1975, is likely to have survived until human colonization of the island, although it is known only from subfossil bones. Several species of Pterodroma are distributed across the Atlantic, but the skull and bill of Pt. rupinarum were judged to be more similar to the Indo-Pacific Pterodroma rostrata group, which was recently split into the separate genus Pseudobulweria. We used ancient DNA techniques to sequence the mitochondrial cytochrome b gene of the extinct Pt. rupinarum, and conducted phylogenetic analyses to investigate the placement of this enigmatic taxon. In trees constructed using maximum likelihood and Bayesian inference, Pt. rupinarum did not group with Pseudobulweria, but instead fell within a strongly supported clade of Atlantic Pterodroma, including the endangered Black-capped [Pterodroma hasitata (Kuhl, 1820)] and Bermuda [Pterodroma cahow (Nichols & Mowbray, 1916)] petrels, as well as the Macaronesian petrels [Pterodroma madeira Mathews, 1934, Pterodroma feae (Salvadori, 1899) and Pterodroma deserta Mathews, 1934]. Pterodroma rupinarum shared a particularly close relationship with Pt. feae of the Cape Verde Islands, which is also the geographically closest species within the clade. Considering the osteological distinctiveness of Pt. rupinarum it was probably a separate species, or at least a highly diverged population that was isolated for a substantial period of time prior to its extinction.

Citation

Welch, A., Olson, S., & Fleischer, R. (2014). Phylogenetic relationships of the extinct St Helena petrel, Pterodroma rupinarum Olson, 1975 (Procellariiformes: Procellariidae), based on ancient DNA. Zoological Journal of the Linnean Society, 170(3), 494-505. https://doi.org/10.1111/zoj.12078

Journal Article Type Article
Acceptance Date Aug 2, 2013
Publication Date Mar 1, 2014
Deposit Date Mar 7, 2016
Publicly Available Date Mar 29, 2024
Journal Zoological Journal of the Linnean Society
Print ISSN 0024-4082
Electronic ISSN 1096-3642
Publisher Linnean Society of London
Peer Reviewed Peer Reviewed
Volume 170
Issue 3
Pages 494-505
DOI https://doi.org/10.1111/zoj.12078

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Copyright Statement
This is the accepted version of the following article: Welch, A. J., Olson, S. L. and Fleischer, R. C. (2014), Phylogenetic relationships of the extinct St Helena petrel, Pterodroma rupinarum Olson, 1975 (Procellariiformes: Procellariidae), based on ancient DNA. Zoological Journal of the Linnean Society, 170(3): 494-505, which has been published in final form at http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/zoj.12078. This article may be used for non-commercial purposes in accordance With Wiley Terms and Conditions for self-archiving.




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