Scientists discover a rare, hybrid bird of three different species

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A scientist-led detective work has shown that a single singing bird discovered by a citizen citizen in Pennsylvania is the offspring of a hybrid mother and a warbler father belonging to an entirely different kind – a combination never recorded before and which resulted in a unique hybrid bird species

"It's extremely rare," said ornithologist David Toews (Cornell Lab of Ornithology postdoctoral fellow) and lead author of a recent study on the possible origins of a spectacular avian hybrid.

This unique bird was first sighted and photographed by Lowell Burket, a citizen scientist and citizen, who lives and works in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

"During migration periods and sporadically throughout the summer, I travel two hours to my family's farm property, which includes a few hundred acres of woodland," Burket said. email. "I've always photographed wild animals, but I did not do anything until the mid-2000s because I did not really have time. About 9 to 10 years ago, I noticed colorful birds coming out of a small water spot on one of the horse trails. I noticed them again later this summer at the same watering point and decided to see if I could catch pictures of these colorful birds. "

"My pictures were ugly because the birds were so small," noted Mr. Burket sadly. "[S]o I did some research on the best ways to get decent pictures of birds in the wild and I bought a professional camera and an entry-level zoom. "

As you can see, the quality of his bird photographs has improved considerably.

"On May 7 of this year, I took pictures and videos all afternoon at pothole and the hybrid appeared twice for about 20 seconds. I thought it was a Brewster Warbler and it struck me because I had never seen Brewster during the spring migration. "

The Brewster Warbler takes its name from 1874 after being described by William Brewster, who discovered it in Massachusetts. Initially considered a new species, the bird received the scientific name Vermivora leucobronchialis, but it is now known that Brewster's Warbler is a hybrid of the Blue-winged and Golden-winged Warblers; Vermivora chrysoptera X Vermivora cyanoptera. Brewster's Warbler generally has genetically dominant characters and plumage patterns – for example, the black line on its eye and the distinctly separate wing bars are from the blue-winged warbler, while the cream-yellow underparts and the wing bars Yellow are from the Golden-winged Warbler.

"When I looked at my images later in the evening, I missed the black wax and the typical brew yellow color of Brewster," said Burket. In addition, he noted that this mysterious bird had a faint, but distinctly distinctive, reddish-brown spot on either side of his neck. Was it dirt? Dried blood? Or was it the coloring of the bird's feather?

"Then I looked at the bird from the back picture and I could see the white supercilium [‘eyebrow’] and a pale gray mask, typical of the wing of gold [warbler]so I decided it was the Brewster brewery, "continued Burket. "[B]but where do the red spots come from?

The only species of Warblers in the region with red-ribbed neck markings are the Brown-sided Warblers.

"I decided that I needed to see him sing to see what song he was singing."

Singing is one of the many "diagnostic signals" that other songbirds – and bird watchers! – rely on species identification. Each species sings its own distinct song and the chicks of both sexes learn the songs of their species by listening to their fathers and the neighboring males of the same species while they are still at nest. Thus, the song of this mysterious bird would diagnose which species was his father.

A few weeks later, Mr. Burket fulfilled his wish: he filmed the mystery bird singing for two consecutive days. The audio quality was high enough that he could identify the song of the species. He discovered that the mysterious bird was singing a song of the brown warbler.

Could this mysterious bird be a hybrid of Brewster's Warbler with a Brown-breasted Warbler father? Mr. Burket reviewed his bird photographs from the previous year and spotted a female Brewster Warbler at Pothole during the breeding season. He also knew that Brown-sided Warblers breed in the woods of his property, so … is it possible that it's a "triple hybrid" never seen before between a hybrid mother of Brewster Parulcher and a chestnut – warbler father This certainly seemed like a far-fetched idea: even though Brewster's Warbler is itself a hybrid, it is a hybrid between two closely related species belonging to a genus completely different from the warbler. with brown flanks further away. But those strange spots on his neck, the absence of a dark eye band and the song – this remarkable diagnostic song! – were convincing.

"I searched for" a hybrid warbler "on Google and I could not find anything on that combination and decided to contact the Cornell Lab of Ornithology for expert advice," Burket said. He emailed photos and a video of the mysterious bird to the "Lab of O" and was looking forward to an answer.

"I tried to give the email a little intellectual sound so they did not think I was a jigsaw puzzle," recalls Mr. Burket. "Have the pictures and the video helped."

Intrigued by what he saw, Dr. Toews drove 4 hours earlier from Cornell to meet Mr. Burket. The next morning, they installed a fog net in the same area where the mysterious bird had sung several times. Thanks to Mr. Burket's intimate knowledge of this bird's habits, it took him only four minutes to catch it.

"[I]It was an incredible experience, "said Mr. Burket. "I had never seen anything like it on Discovery Channel."

Now that Dr. Toews had this mysterious bird in his hand, he noticed that he looked a lot like a Brown-leaved Warbler, which was unlikely at the beginning of May, when he was first spotted, because most warblers do not escape until June. But at the same time, the white eyebrow of the bird-black in adult male warblers, and olive or gray in juveniles or females-and its slightly gray cheek spot were more characteristic of Vermivora warblers. Dr. Toews took a series of detailed photographs as well as measurements of the beak length and wings of the mysterious bird, as well as other physical characters, for further examination. He then gave him a USFWS leg band bearing the unique number: 2850-44901. Before releasing the bird, Dr. Toews also took a small sample of blood for genetic analysis. He then returned to his laboratory and methodically went through all this information like a bird-watching Sherlock Holmes.

The clues were irresistible. Not only did the song clearly indicate that this mysterious bird had a brown-breasted warbler, but the physical measurements indicated that it was a hybrid bird: the length of the beak was longer than one that is typical for chestnut warblers, but that was in the expected range of Vermivora Warblers (Figure 2a), and his wings were longer than anything Vermivora species of warblers but they were similar to the Brown-sided Warblers.

Genetic evidence was also interesting: mysterious bird mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) was 99% identical to the Golden-winged Warbler and 97% to the Blue-winged Warbler – these species only differ by 3 to 4% (Figure 2).b) – so this conclusion was as expected. however, Vermivora MtDNA differs from brown-breasted warbler (and others Setophaga species of warblers) of more than 8% (ref.), which once again highlighted the probable origin of the song of this mysterious bird.

To clarify the identity of the alleged father of this mysterious bird, Dr. Toews then examined single-nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) that unambiguously differ from Vermivora Warblers (not = 89 sites) and found that the mysterious bird was heterozygous at all sites except one – which, in retrospect, is likely variable in winged warblers.

SNPs ("cuts") are a very common form of genetic variation observed in all living things. They represent a change in a single nucleotide, or building block of DNA, in the genome. Thus, the finding that half of these SNPs corresponded to that of the Brown-breasted Warbler indicated the identity of the father of this mysterious bird.

Further analysis of the SNPs that specifically distinguish Golden-winged and Blue-winged Warblers revealed that two of the six were from the Blue-winged Warbler pedigree, and four of its ancestors. So, one-third of this mysterious bird Vermivora SNPs came from a blue-winged warbler.

Compare the genetic index of the putative mother to other Vermivora Warblers (Figure 2b), showed that no phenotypic warbler had a genetic index as low as 0.33, whereas only two of the 149 phenotypic warblers had such a high index. On the other hand, Brewster's Warblers have an average genetic index of 0.32 and 23% of them have exactly one-third of blue-winged ancestry. The alleged mother of this mysterious bird thus had a genetic index in the range provided for Brewster's Warblers, thus affirming its identity.

"The female is a hybrid of Golden-winged / Blue-winged Warbler – also known as Brewster's Warbler. She then mated with a Brown-sided Warbler and successfully bred it, "Dr. Toews concluded.

But why do these songbirds hybridize? Especially since women choose their partner mainly according to the quality of their songs?

"It could have been just a mistake (these things happen)," Dr. Toews replied in an e-mail, "even if it's possible that the number of suitable partners is so small (Vermivora warblers are declining in the Appalachians) [that] she made the best of a bad situation. "

In fact, the hybridization between Golden-winged and Blue-winged Warblers has increased in recent decades across the northeastern United States and has spread to Canada. Most of this hybridization results from the movement of the Blue-winged Warbler in its habitat. This is motivated by the effects of global warming and the loss of preferred habitat for the Blue-throated Green Warbler. In addition, Golden-winged Warbler populations are declining, limiting the number of partners of this species.

"Choosing to marry a man who is not perfect could be better than no partner at all!" Observed Dr. Toews. He further pointed out that the hybridization between Brewster's Warblers and Brown-sided Warblers had never been recorded before.

"In fact, this type of hybridization of three species is" extremely rare "in all animals," said Dr. Toews.

What is this hybrid warbler – now known as the Burket Warbler – revealing about species barriers, especially in songbirds?

"Point hybrids tell us primarily that the barriers between species are not perfect, but that's not totally surprising," Dr. Toews explained in an e-mail. "In this case, it also tells us a bit about reproductive compatibility between widely divergent taxa. Although this hybrid may never reproduce, it does suggest that there are not a ton of genetic incompatibilities between parental taxa, so it may have developed to at least appear "normal". "

"This kind of fits the conventional wisdom in these warblers too – that species barriers are kept in" pre-mating isolation barriers " [such as song] and not as much in post-mating genetic incompatibilities, "added Dr. Toews.

In summary, this Burket Warbler, never seen before, has the following phenotypic characteristics:

• Brewster's Warbler: yellow cap, white, green and gray eyebrow back and neck, yellow / gold wing bars well separated
• Brown-breasted Warbler: yellow cap, all white, throat, breast and belly; red spots; white eye circle (characteristic of autumn), dark brown primary colors on wings, slight bands on back

What was the most enjoyable aspect of all this detective work?

"For me, the most fun part about this was being able to involve a citizen scientist like Lowell," said Dr. Toews. "In addition, the use of genetic markers to predict maternal plumage patterns, making it a more original contribution in terms of parental determination."

Could this Burkete Warbler beget its own "children" or mixed ancestry to make it an unwanted companion? Dr. Toews has released the bird and plans to closely monitor Mr. Burket's family property to see what the future holds for him.

What does Mr. Burket think of all this excitement?

"I had literally no knowledge of birds until seven years ago," he replied. "And now, I end up discovering what seems to be a unique bird of its kind. This can happen to anyone!

Source:

David P. L. Toews, Henry Streby, Lowell Burket, Scott A. Taylor (2018). Warblers produced by interspecific and intergeneric hybridization, Letters of biology, published online November 7, 2018 before printing | doi: 10.1098 / rsbl.2018.0557

Scientists discover a rare, hybrid bird of three different species | @GrrlScientist

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A scientist-led detective work has shown that a single singing bird discovered by a citizen citizen in Pennsylvania is the offspring of a hybrid mother and a warbler father belonging to an entirely different kind – a combination never recorded before and which resulted in a unique hybrid bird species

"It's extremely rare," said ornithologist David Toews (Cornell Lab of Ornithology postdoctoral fellow) and lead author of a recent study on the possible origins of a spectacular avian hybrid.

This unique bird was first sighted and photographed by Lowell Burket, a citizen scientist and citizen, who lives and works in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

"During migration periods and sporadically throughout the summer, I travel two hours to my family's farm property, which includes a few hundred acres of woodland," Burket said. email. "I've always photographed wild animals, but I did not do anything until the mid-2000s because I did not really have time. About 9 to 10 years ago, I noticed colorful birds coming out of a small water spot on one of the horse trails. I noticed them again later this summer at the same watering point and decided to see if I could catch pictures of these colorful birds. "

"My pictures were ugly because the birds were so small," noted Mr. Burket sadly. "[S]o I did some research on the best ways to get decent pictures of birds in the wild and I bought a professional camera and an entry-level zoom. "

As you can see, the quality of his bird photographs has improved considerably.

"On May 7 of this year, I took pictures and videos all afternoon at pothole and the hybrid appeared twice for about 20 seconds. I thought it was a Brewster Warbler and it struck me because I had never seen Brewster during the spring migration. "

The Brewster Warbler takes its name from 1874 after being described by William Brewster, who discovered it in Massachusetts. Initially considered a new species, the bird received the scientific name Vermivora leucobronchialis, but it is now known that Brewster's Warbler is a hybrid of the Blue-winged and Golden-winged Warblers; Vermivora chrysoptera X Vermivora cyanoptera. Brewster's Warbler generally has genetically dominant characters and plumage patterns – for example, the black line on its eye and the distinctly separate wing bars are from the blue-winged warbler, while the cream-yellow underparts and the wing bars Yellow are from the Golden-winged Warbler.

"When I looked at my images later in the evening, I missed the black wax and the typical brew yellow color of Brewster," said Burket. In addition, he noted that this mysterious bird had a faint, but distinctly distinctive, reddish-brown spot on either side of his neck. Was it dirt? Dried blood? Or was it the coloring of the bird's feather?

"Then I looked at the bird from the back picture and I could see the white supercilium [‘eyebrow’] and a pale gray mask, typical of the wing of gold [warbler]so I decided it was the Brewster brewery, "continued Burket. "[B]but where do the red spots come from?

The only species of Warblers in the region with red-ribbed neck markings are the Brown-sided Warblers.

"I decided that I needed to see him sing to see what song he was singing."

Singing is one of the many "diagnostic signals" that other songbirds – and bird watchers! – rely on species identification. Each species sings its own distinct song and the chicks of both sexes learn the songs of their species by listening to their fathers and the neighboring males of the same species while they are still at nest. Thus, the song of this mysterious bird would diagnose which species was his father.

A few weeks later, Mr. Burket fulfilled his wish: he filmed the mystery bird singing for two consecutive days. The audio quality was high enough that he could identify the song of the species. He discovered that the mysterious bird was singing a song of the brown warbler.

Could this mysterious bird be a hybrid of Brewster's Warbler with a Brown-breasted Warbler father? Mr. Burket reviewed his bird photographs from the previous year and spotted a female Brewster Warbler at Pothole during the breeding season. He also knew that Brown-sided Warblers breed in the woods of his property, so … is it possible that it's a "triple hybrid" never seen before between a hybrid mother of Brewster Parulcher and a chestnut – warbler father This certainly seemed like a far-fetched idea: even though Brewster's Warbler is itself a hybrid, it is a hybrid between two closely related species belonging to a genus completely different from the warbler. with brown flanks further away. But those strange spots on his neck, the absence of a dark eye band and the song – this remarkable diagnostic song! – were convincing.

"I searched for" a hybrid warbler "on Google and I could not find anything on that combination and decided to contact the Cornell Lab of Ornithology for expert advice," Burket said. He emailed photos and a video of the mysterious bird to the "Lab of O" and was looking forward to an answer.

"I tried to give the email a little intellectual sound so they did not think I was a jigsaw puzzle," recalls Mr. Burket. "Have the pictures and the video helped."

Intrigued by what he saw, Dr. Toews drove 4 hours earlier from Cornell to meet Mr. Burket. The next morning, they installed a fog net in the same area where the mysterious bird had sung several times. Thanks to Mr. Burket's intimate knowledge of this bird's habits, it took him only four minutes to catch it.

"[I]It was an incredible experience, "said Mr. Burket. "I had never seen anything like it on Discovery Channel."

Now that Dr. Toews had this mysterious bird in his hand, he noticed that he looked a lot like a Brown-leaved Warbler, which was unlikely at the beginning of May, when he was first spotted, because most warblers do not escape until June. But at the same time, the white eyebrow of the bird-black in adult male warblers, and olive or gray in juveniles or females-and its slightly gray cheek spot were more characteristic of Vermivora warblers. Dr. Toews took a series of detailed photographs as well as measurements of the beak length and wings of the mysterious bird, as well as other physical characters, for further examination. He then gave him a USFWS leg band bearing the unique number: 2850-44901. Before releasing the bird, Dr. Toews also took a small sample of blood for genetic analysis. He then returned to his laboratory and methodically went through all this information like a bird-watching Sherlock Holmes.

The clues were irresistible. Not only did the song clearly indicate that this mysterious bird had a brown-breasted warbler, but the physical measurements indicated that it was a hybrid bird: the length of the beak was longer than one that is typical for chestnut warblers, but that was in the expected range of Vermivora Warblers (Figure 2a), and his wings were longer than anything Vermivora species of warblers but they were similar to the Brown-sided Warblers.

Genetic evidence was also interesting: mysterious bird mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) was 99% identical to the Golden-winged Warbler and 97% to the Blue-winged Warbler – these species only differ by 3 to 4% (Figure 2).b) – so this conclusion was as expected. however, Vermivora MtDNA differs from brown-breasted warbler (and others Setophaga species of warblers) of more than 8% (ref.), which once again highlighted the probable origin of the song of this mysterious bird.

To clarify the identity of the alleged father of this mysterious bird, Dr. Toews then examined single-nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) that unambiguously differ from Vermivora Warblers (not = 89 sites) and found that the mysterious bird was heterozygous at all sites except one – which, in retrospect, is likely variable in winged warblers.

SNPs ("cuts") are a very common form of genetic variation observed in all living things. They represent a change in a single nucleotide, or building block of DNA, in the genome. Thus, the finding that half of these SNPs corresponded to that of the Brown-breasted Warbler indicated the identity of the father of this mysterious bird.

Further analysis of the SNPs that specifically distinguish Golden-winged and Blue-winged Warblers revealed that two of the six were from the Blue-winged Warbler pedigree, and four of its ancestors. So, one-third of this mysterious bird Vermivora SNPs came from a blue-winged warbler.

Compare the genetic index of the putative mother to other Vermivora Warblers (Figure 2b), a montré qu’aucune paruline phénotypique n’avait un indice génétique aussi faible que 0,33, alors que seulement deux des 149 parulines phénotypiques avaient un indice aussi élevé. En revanche, les parulines de Brewster ont un indice génétique moyen de 0,32 et 23% d’entre elles ont exactement un tiers d’ascendance à ailes bleues. La mère présumée de cet oiseau mystérieux avait donc un indice génétique dans la fourchette prévue pour les parulines de Brewster, affirmant ainsi son identité.

«La femelle est un hybride de paruline à ailes dorées / à ailes bleues – également appelée paruline de Brewster. Elle a ensuite accouplé avec une Paruline à flancs marrons et l&#39;a reproduite avec succès », a conclu le Dr Toews.

Mais pourquoi ces oiseaux chanteurs s&#39;hybrident-ils? Surtout que les femmes choisissent leur partenaire principalement en fonction de la qualité de leurs chansons?

"Cela aurait pu être juste une erreur (ces choses se produisent)", a répondu le Dr Toews dans un courrier électronique, "même s&#39;il est possible que le nombre de partenaires adéquats soit si faible (Vermivora les fauvettes sont en déclin dans les Appalaches) [that] elle tirait le meilleur parti d’une mauvaise situation ».

En fait, l&#39;hybridation entre la paruline à ailes dorées et la paruline à ailes bleues s&#39;est accrue au cours des dernières décennies dans tout le nord-est des États-Unis et s&#39;est étendue jusqu&#39;au Canada. La plupart de cette hybridation résulte du déplacement de la paruline à ailes bleues dans son habitat. Ceci est motivé par les effets du réchauffement climatique et la perte de l’habitat privilégié de la paruline à gorge bleue. De plus, les populations de parulines à ailes dorées sont en déclin, ce qui limite le nombre de partenaires de cette espèce.

"Choisir de se marier avec un homme qui n’est pas parfait pourrait être mieux que pas de partenaire du tout!", A observé le Dr Toews. Il a ensuite souligné que l’hybridation entre les parulines de Brewster et les parulines à flancs marrons n’avait jamais été enregistrée auparavant.

"En fait, ce type d&#39;hybridation de trois espèces est" extrêmement rare "chez tous les animaux", a déclaré le Dr Toews.

Qu&#39;est-ce que cette paruline hybride – maintenant connue sous le nom de paruline de Burket – révèle au sujet des barrières des espèces, en particulier chez les oiseaux chanteurs?

«Les hybrides ponctuels nous disent principalement que les barrières entre espèces ne sont pas parfaites, mais ce n’est pas totalement surprenant», a expliqué le Dr Toews dans un courrier électronique. «Dans ce cas, cela nous en dit aussi un peu sur la compatibilité en matière de reproduction entre des taxons très divergents. Bien que cet hybride puisse ne jamais se reproduire, il suggère toutefois qu’il n’ya pas une tonne d’incompatibilités génétiques entre les taxons parentaux, de sorte qu’il a pu se développer pour au moins paraître «normal». "

"Ce genre de correspond à la sagesse conventionnelle chez ces fauvettes aussi – que les barrières d&#39;espèce sont maintenues en" barrières d&#39;isolement de pré-accouplement " [such as song] et pas autant en post-accouplement génétiques incompatibilités », a ajouté le Dr Toews.

En résumé, cette paruline de Burket, jamais vue auparavant, présente les caractéristiques phénotypiques suivantes:

• Paruline de Brewster: coiffe jaune, sourcil blanc, vert et gris dos et nuque, barres alaires jaune / or bien séparées
• Paruline à flancs marrons: calotte jaune, toute blanche, gorge, poitrine et ventre; taches rousses; cercle oculaire blanc (caractéristique de l’automne), couleurs primaires brun foncé sur les ailes, légères bandes sur le dos

Quel était l&#39;aspect le plus agréable de tout ce travail de détective?

«Pour moi, la partie la plus amusante à ce sujet a été de pouvoir impliquer un citoyen scientifique comme Lowell», a déclaré le Dr Toews. "En outre, l&#39;utilisation des marqueurs génétiques pour prédire les modèles de plumage maternel, ce qui en a fait une contribution plus originale en termes de détermination des parents."

Est-ce que cette paruline de Burket pourrait bien engendrer ses propres "enfants" ou son ascendance mixte en ferait-il un compagnon indésirable? Le Dr Toews a relâché l&#39;oiseau et prévoit surveiller de près la propriété familiale de M. Burket pour voir ce que l&#39;avenir lui réserve.

Que pense M. Burket de toute cette excitation?

«Je n&#39;avais littéralement aucune connaissance sur les oiseaux jusqu&#39;à il y a sept ans», a-t-il répondu. «Et maintenant, je finis par découvrir ce qui semble être un oiseau unique en son genre. Cela peut arriver à n&#39;importe qui!

Source:

David P. L. Toews, Henry M. Streby, Lowell Burket, Scott A. Taylor (2018). A wood-warbler produced through both interspecific and intergeneric hybridization, Letters of biology, published online on 7 November 2018 before print | doi:10.1098/rsbl.2018.0557

Scientists Discover A Rare Bird That’s A Hybrid Of Three Different Species | @GrrlScientist