Assembling the Archive

We measured the bones of extinct great auks Pinguinis impennis that were killed during recent centuries on Funk Island off the northeast coast of Newfoundland. Comparisons of these measurements with those taken elsewhere suggest that great auks from Funk Island, which is situated in a Low Arctic oceanographic region, were larger than conspecifics from Boreal oceanographic regions. This finding is supported by extant alcid species that inhabit Boreal, Low Arctic or Boreal through High Arctic ocean regions and tend to increase in body size with increasing latitude (generally decreasing sea surface temperature). We suggest that paleoecological sea surface temperatures and food webs may have favored oceanographic-related variation in body sizes of great auks. The variances of the bone sizes of great auks from Funk Island were not less than those of a sample of great auk bones collected from Scandinavian archaeological sites that cover an extensive geographic range and that span seven millenia. This finding is inconsistent with a previously suggested latitudinal cline in body size among great auks in Scandinavia. Research techniques and studies that could address questions of great auk feeding ecology and population genetics are considered.

Seabirds are the most threatened of any living group of birds, continuing a larger pattern of elevated Holocene bird extinctions on islands and coastlines. The Great Auk (Charadriiformes: Pinguinus impennis) was found on both coasts of the Atlantic during the Holocene until its last sighting on Iceland in 1844. Far more is known about the population structure and genetic diversity of NE Atlantic populations, and the latest surviving populations were documented from the British Isles in 1834. While sightings from Canada suggest Great Auks disappeared by 1800, no systematic evaluation of extinction timing has been conducted for this coast. Determining extinction timing of the Great Auk in Maine allows a comparison to be made to populations in other areas of the Atlantic Ocean, and raises the question: was the Maine population’s fate different due to regional, cultural, or other factors? There is a single eye-witness record in the late 17th century at “Black Point”, now Scarborough, Maine. To address this gap, we compiled a radiocarbon dataset on associated material from Maine archaeological shell middens. These 91 dates from 13 sites situate the Great Auk in Maine from about 180 to 4,555 years before present. The majority of these dates are from charcoal samples, but also include shells, ceramics, and bone, and cultural contexts span the Middle and Late Ceramic Periods. To account for differences in stratigraphic control and sampling material, we assigned quality scores, and used these scores to run a sensitivity analysis in extinction timing with the GRIWM model. Disentangling the spatiotemporal dynamics of the Great Auk extinction in Maine is useful in determining how to conserve current species in decline and modern insular seabirds in Maine, such as the puffin. Future study will include new radiocarbon dating of bones as well as isotopic and morphometric analysis to unfold more chapters of the Maine Great Auk’s narrative.

Since the late 1600s it has been assumed that the Great AukPinguinus impenniswas similar to the Common GuillemotUria aalgeand Brünnich's GuillemotUria lomviain having a single, central brood patch. Through the examination of eight mounted museum specimens, we show that this is incorrect and that, like its closest relative the RazorbillAlca torda, the Great Auk had two lateral brood patches. We discuss how such misinformation persisted for so long. We also review the relationship between the number of brood patches and clutch size in the Alcidae. One implication of two brood patches is that the Great Auk would have incubated in a horizontal posture like the Razorbill, rather than in a semi‐upright posture like theUriaguillemots. Assuming that the Great Auk incubated like the Razorbill, it would probably have done so horizontally with its single egg pressed against one of the two lateral brood patches, positioned against the inside of one tarsus (and partially on the web of one foot), and with the wing on that side drooped to provide additional protection for the egg. Incubating in this way may have meant that the Great Auk's pyriform egg would have enabled it to use both level and sloping terrain, as in theUriaguillemots (but unlike the Razorbill). A horizontal incubation also has implications for estimates of their breeding density, which we estimate to have been around four pairs per square metre and, hence numbers on its largest known colony, Funk Island, Newfoundland (maximum 250 000 pairs).

The life, death and afterlife of one of the true icons of extinction, the Great Auk The great auk was a flightless, goose-sized bird superbly adapted for life at sea. Fat, flush with feathers and easy to capture, the birds were in trouble whenever sailors visited their once-remote breeding colonies. Places like Funk Island, off north-east Newfoundland, became scenes of unimaginable slaughter, with birds killed in their millions. By 1800 the auks of Funk Island were gone. A scramble by private collectors for specimens of the final few birds then began, a bloody, unthinking destruction of one of the world’s most extraordinary species. But their extinction in 1844 wasn’t the end of the great auk story, as the bird went on to have a remarkable afterlife; skins, eggs and skeletons became the focus for dozens of collectors in a story of pathological craving and unscrupulous dealings that goes on to this day. In a book rich with insight and packed with tales of birds and of people, Tim Birkhead reveals previously unimagined aspects of the bird’s life before humanity, its death on the killing shores of the North Atlantic, and the unrelenting subsequent quest for its remains. The great auk remains a symbol of human folly and the necessity of conservation. This book tells its story.

Reviewed by: The Tragic Tale of the Great Auk Elizabeth Bush Thornhill, Jan The Tragic Tale of the Great Auk; written and illus. by Jan Thornhill. Groundwood, 2016 44p ISBN 978-1-55498-865-5 $18.95 R* Gr. 3-6 The short of it is that the great auk, a flightless seabird, is extinct. The long of it, however, is that the story of this extinction is one of considerable complexity, with plot threads involving evolution, geology, human history, and several strokes of plain bad luck. Thornbill’s approach to this historical event is so advanced it’s simple: she tells the tale. No chapter headings, no sidebars, no highlighted vocabulary, no literary gimmicks. She just tells the tale. And what a tale it is. Evolution favored the great auk with a body wonderfully adapted to hunting fish in the cold, open sea. With short wings, and legs set unusually far back, it was a speedy, agile swimmer. The trade-off, though, was the inability to fly, and since birds cannot lay eggs in mid ocean, auks were forced ashore to mate, lay their eggs, and rear their fledglings in an environment in which their only mobility was an awkward waddle. Fortunately the great auk always managed to find nesting grounds on storm-wracked North Atlantic coasts, on uninhabitable islands, or in any number of craggy, cliff-protected spots that foiled predators or at least limited the predators’ threat to their overall numbers. Even early humans, who are known to have developed a taste for great auk, couldn’t make a dent in their thriving populations. Once human hunters took to the sea in ever more efficient boats, though, auk colonies began to diminish and even disappear, losing the race to find protected nesting grounds. Was this the beginning of the tragic end? Or was it when the last excellent rocky island refuge sank in a volcanic eruption? Or when legal efforts to protect the endangered birds against hunters proved too little, too late? Or when the great auk’s rarity made it a target for collectors, who hustled the very last survivors to their demise in the nineteenth century ? Thornhill engages readers with well-placed questions that anticipate their curiosity. “So why didn’t The Wobble [an New England nickname for the Great Auk] avoid land entirely?” “How, then, did it successfully raise its young for millennia?” “So is that all that’s left of the Great Auk? A few sad taxidermy displays and blown eggs?” She also exploits the natural momentum of the auks’ history: as the tale shifts chronological scale from evolutionary time to the historical time, the pacing accelerates and the details become more plentiful and sharply focused. Humans appear on the scene, and we learn about the tempting richness of auk egg omelettes and pancakes; the usefulness of a fatty auk carcass as a substitute for firewood; the execution of the last known auk in the British Isles for witchcraft; the skyrocketing value of rare auk eggs that drove a collector to crush one specimen in order to raise the value of another; Iceland’s 1971 purchase of a stuffed auk and its [End Page 111] celebratory arrival: “A bird that never flew in life flew into Iceland strapped into its very own seat on an airplane.” Digital artwork, which makes clever use of fine white lines detailing foamy ocean and ghostly images of the decimated species, could easily pass for mixed-media compositions. In keeping with the great auk’s very long backstory and relatively short but deadly connection with mankind, most spreads feature auks in the wild rather than alongside their human predators. A notable trio, though, delivers serious chills: a museum gallery featuring a pair of taxidermied auks; the stuffed auk on its way to Iceland, seen through an airplane window; and a view of the booted legs of the men who strangled the last remaining auks, which now dangle at the hunters’ sides. Yes, Nature dealt the great auks some weak hands, but they beat the odds for countless millennia, until humans finally drove them from the table. Lists of resources, references, extinct species, and great auk names in thirteen...

Extinctions, Specific

The collection is extremely strong in diversity of island species throughout the world. Also the collection contains significant historical collections of importance: James Henry Fleming, James A. Munro, Hoyes Lloyd, part of the Haverschmidt collection from the Guyanas, R. G. Lanning, H.B. Haugh collection of birds eggs from Southern Ontario. The Fleming collection, once considered the most comprehensive private collection of birds in North America, contains many unique collections from Africa, Europe, India, China, and Island Archipelagos of the world. Representative collections of the magnificent Birds of Paradise (Passeriformes; Paradisaeidae) and Bower Birds (Passeriformes; Ptilonorhynchidae) (from the Fleming Collection) has been described as within the top 10 in world by researchers. Sub-collections of the J.H. Fleming, J.A. Munro collections are considered historically significant to the Ornithological community. Other significant collections are The New World Sparrows (Passeriformes: Emberizidae); the North American Wood Warblers (Passeriformes: Parulidae); Shorebirds, Gulls and Auks (Charadriiformes) and the Chicken-like birds (Galliformes) of North America, New World Vireos and Allies (Passeriformes: Vireonidae). The study skin collection contains one of the largest collections in the world of extinct birds including 132 Passenger Pigeon specimens (skins) and New Zealand Huias famed for their sexually dimorphic bills. 1 specimen of the extinct Labrador Duck (1 of 54 mounted skins in world). 1 specimen of the extinct Great Auk (1 of 78 mounted skins in world), miscellaneous skeletal parts of Great Auk specimens, 14 specimens of the extinct Carolina Parakeet and many other species. The skin collection contains historically significant holdings of the highly endangered Hawaiian Honeycreepers (Passeriformes: Fringillidae Drepanididae) from the Fleming collection, 1840s through to 1913, and the famous Darwin’s finches. The frozen tissue collection contains the largest collection of blood and DNA from endangered kiwi populations in New Zealand, as well as bone shavings and DNA from the 14 extinct species of giant moas. Extensive series of New World Owls. Extensive series of New World Flycatchers. Large series of New World Sparrows.

Archaeological finds of the great auk, Alca impennis, and the northern gannet, Sula bassana, from prehistoric and historic coastal sites around the British Isles show the earlier distribution of these birds. They suggest that the great auk bred more widely in the eastern Atlantic than on the few breeding sites which are attested historically. Comparison between the two species suggests that the method of exploitation as well as the biology and behaviour of each contributed to the extinction of the former and the survival of the latter. Copyright © 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

In order to forage and to provision offspring effectively, seabirds negotiate a complex of behavioural, energetic, environmental and social constraints. In first tests of GPS loggers with seabirds in North America, we investigated the foraging tactics of free-ranging northern gannets (Sula bassana) at a large and a medium-sized colony that differed in oceanography, coastal position and prey fields. Gannets at Low Arctic colony (Funk Island) 50 km off the northeast coast of Newfoundland, Canada provisioned chicks almost entirely with small forage fish (capelin Mallotus villosus, 89%), while at boreal colony (Bonaventure Island) 3 km from shore in the Gulf of St. Lawrence, Quebec, Canada, large pelagic fish dominated parental prey loads (Atlantic mackerel Scomber scombrus 50%, Atlantic herring Clupea harengus 33%). Mean foraging range and the total distance travelled per foraging trip were significantly greater at the larger inshore colony (Bonaventure) than at the smaller offshore colony (Funk Island; 138 and 452 km vs. 64 and 196 km, respectively). Gannets from Funk Island consistently travelled inshore to forage on reproductive capelin shoals near the coast, whereas foraging flights of birds from Bonaventure were much more variable in direction and destination. Birds from the Low Arctic colony foraged in colder sea surface water than did birds from the boreal colony, and dive characteristics differed between colonies, which is concordent with the difference in prey base. Differences between the colonies reflect oceanographic and colony-size influences on prey fields that shape individual foraging tactics and in turn generate higher level colony-specific foraging “strategies”.

In this text, two of the world's leading experts in palynology and paleobotany provide a comprehensive account of the fate of land plants during the 'great extinction' about 65 million years ago. They describe how the time boundary between the Cretaceous and Paleogene Periods (the K–T boundary) is recognised in the geological record, and how fossil plants can be used to understand global events of that time. There are case studies from over 100 localities around the world, including North America, China, Russia and New Zealand. The book concludes with an evaluation of possible causes of the K–T boundary event and its effects on floras of the past and present. This book is written for researchers and students in paleontology, botany, geology and Earth history, and everyone who has been following the course of the extinction debate and the K–T boundary paradigm shift.

Bryum knowltonii Barnes, known previously in North America only from northern Canadian stations, has been found in arctic-like tundra of the Mount Zirkel Wilderness in Colorado. Bryum knowltonii Barnes was collected August 1981 in the Mount Zirkel Wilderness, north-central Colorado. The habitat is flat to gently undulating tundra, usually wet, arcticlike rather than the typically drier alpine tundra in Colorado. This species is known in North America from Funk Island, Newfoundland, from Southampton Island, Northwest Territories, and from Fort Churchill, Manitoba. Andrews (in Grout 1936) reported it from a few localities in arctic America, south to Newfoundland. Determination was made by Elva Lawton and confirmed by A. C. Crundwell, with the assistance of F. J. Hermann. Diagnostic features include indistinctly bordered ovate leaves, revolute to the apex or nearly so, acute to shortly acuminate, with costa subpercurrent to slightly excurrent, synoicous reproduction, capsules broadly pyriform, pendent, with a short, distinct neck, and spores 16-27 um. Endostome segments are narrow and the cilia rudimentary. A helpful characteristic, pointed out by Dr. Crundwell, is that the capsules mature at different times instead of simultaneously as in most Brya. Crum and Anderson (1981) give a complete description. Grout's Moss Flora and Bryologia Europaea use the synonym B. lacustre. United States collection: COLORADO. JACKSON CO.: Rainbow Lakes Trail approaching the Continental Divide, just W of the Roxy Ann Lake turnoff, 1 km N of Mt. Ethel, 3400 m, 40?40'00N, 106'40'35W, Rolston 81106 (coLo; GL; NY; US; WTU). Bruch, P., W. P. Schimper & T. Giimbel. 1836-1855. Bryologia Europaea. 3 Vols. Reprint (1971). A. Asher, Amsterdam. Crum, Howard A. & Lewis E. Anderson. 1981. Mosses of Eastern North America. 2 Vols. Columbia University Press, New York. Grout, A. J. 1936. Moss Flora of North America North of Mexico. Bryaceae. Newfane, Vermont. 2: 219-220. 007-2745/82/420$0.25/0 This content downloaded from 157.55.39.45 on Fri, 02 Sep 2016 06:13:29 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms

Four new species and one new forma are described in the genus Porpidia. Porpidia flavocruenta Fryday & Buschbom, a member of the P. macrocarpa group that has previously been overlooked for ‘P. flavocoerulescens’, is reported from Austria, the British Isles, Scandinavia, Iceland, and North America (Alaska); P. islandica Fryday, Knoph & Hertel is reported from Iceland and Scotland; and P. pachythallina Fryday and P. striata Fryday from the British Isles only. The sorediate morph of P. superba is described as P. superba f. sorediata Fryday, known from the British Isles, Sweden, Svalbard, and North America (Maine). Variation in P. macrocarpa is discussed and the new combination P. macrocarpa f. nigrocruenta (Anzi) Fryday made. Secondary metabolite production is discussed and the variation in the production of chemosyndromes considered to be more variable than previously reported. The position of several other taxa is discussed and P. herteliana and P. musiva are reduced to synonymy with P. cinereoatra, P. calcarea to synonymy with P. superba, and P. diversa to synonymy with P. contraponenda. However, P. grisea and P. lowiana are provisionally maintained as distinct species from P. tuberculosa and P. cinereoatra respectively, although P. grisea has not been correctly recorded from the British Isles. The typification of Spiloma tuberculosa Sm., the basionym of Porpidia tuberculosa, is discussed and a lectotype proposed; the new combination Porpidia rugosa (Taylor) Coppins & Fryday is made and shown to be the correct name for P. glaucophaea; and Porpidia flavicunda (Ach.) Gowan is used for the esorediate taxon usually known as Porpidia flavocoerulescens because this epithet is to be proposed for rejection as it is considered to be of confused usage. Porpidia hydrophila is shown to be a member of the P. albocaerulescens group. Porpidia lowiana, P. nadvornikiana, and P. thomsonii are recorded for the first time from the British Isles, and P. macrocarpa f. nigrocruenta confirmed as a British taxon. Notes and a key are provided for all the species of the genus that have been reported from the area.

Abstract: The biodiversity and biogeography of 217 genera of Mississippian crinoids from North America and the British Isles shed light on the macroevolutionary turnover between the Middle Palaeozoic and Late Palaeozoic Crinoid Evolutionary Faunas. This turnover resulted from steady differential extinction among clades during the middle Mississippian after crinoids reached their Phanerozoic peak of generic richness during the early Mississippian. This peak richness was primarily a function of Mississippian originations rather than Devonian–holdover taxa. North America had 100 per cent higher generic richness than the British Isles, but rarefaction analysis adjusts the difference to only 37 per cent higher. Rarefaction demonstrated that North America had increased biodiversity, compared to the British Isles, almost entirely among monobathrid camerates, disparids and primitive cladids. In contrast, diplobathrid camerates, advanced cladids and flexibles had the same generic biodiversity between regions, when compared using rarefaction. The early Mississippian radiation resulted from two primary causes: (1) the expansion of Tournaisian carbonate ramps following the Frasnian mass extinction of reef faunas and (2) the predatory release in the Tournaisian following the end‐Famennian Hangenberg extinction of durophagous fishes. A majority of crinoid genera from the British Isles are cosmopolitan. When combined with rarefaction analysis and evidence for more first occurrences in North America, this suggests higher origination rates in North America, especially when carbonate ramps were widespread. With the gradual reduction in the area of carbonate ramps from the early to late Mississippian, in conjunction with the radiation of new durophagous fishes, camerate crinoids in particular experienced continuous background extinction, without replacement, beginning during the earliest Viséan (late Osagean). By middle Viséan time (late Meramecian) advanced cladids were dominant in all settings. This resulted in the transition from the Middle Palaeozoic to the Late Palaeozoic Crinoid Macroevolutionary Fauna.

West Nile virus (WNV) transmitted by mosquitoes (Diptera: Culicidae) infects various vertebrates, being pathogenic for birds, horses and humans. After its discovery in tropical Africa, sporadic outbreaks of WNV occurred during recent decades in Eurasia, but not the British Isles. WNV reached New York in 1999 and spread to California by 2003, causing widespread outbreaks of West Nile encephalitis across North America, transmitted by many species of mosquitoes, mainly Culex spp. The periodic reappearance of WNV in parts of continental Europe (from southern France to Romania) gives rise to concern over the possibility of WNV invading the British Isles. The British Isles have about 30 endemic mosquito species, several with seasonal abundance and other eco-behavioural characteristics predisposing them to serve as potential WNV bridge vectors from birds to humans. These include: the predominantly ornithophilic Culex pipiens L. and its anthropophilic biotype molestus Forskal; tree-hole adapted Anopheles plumbeus Stephens; saltmarsh-adapted Ochlerotatus caspius Pallas, Oc. detritus Haliday and Oc. dorsalis (Meigen); Coquillettidia richiardii Ficalbi, Culiseta annulata Schrank and Cs. morsitans (Theobald) from vegetated freshwater pools; Aedes cinereus Meigen, Oc. cantans Meigen and Oc. punctor Kirby from seasonal woodland pools. Those underlined have been found carrying WNV in other countries (12 species), including the rarer British species Aedes vexans (Meigen), Culex europaeus Ramos et al., Cx. modestus Ficalbi and Oc. sticticus (Meigen) as well as the Anopheles maculipennis Meigen complex (mainly An. atroparvus van Thiel and An. messeae Falleroni in Britain). Those implicated as key vectors of WNV in Europe are printed bold (four species). So far there is no proof of any arbovirus transmission by mosquitoes in the British Isles, although antibodies to Sindbis, Tahyna, Usutu and West Nile viruses have been detected in British birds. Neighbouring European countries have enzootic WNV and human infections transmitted by mosquito species that are present in the British Isles. However, except for localized urban infestations of Cx. pipiens biotype molestus that can be readily eliminated, there appear to be few situations in the British Isles where humans and livestock are exposed to sustained risks of exposure to potential WNV vectors. Monitoring of mosquitoes and arbovirus surveillance are required to guard the British Isles against WNV outbreaks and introduction of more anthropophilic mosquitoes such as Stegomyia albopicta (Skuse) and Ochlerotatus japonicus (Theobald) that have recently invaded Europe, since they transmit arboviruses elsewhere.

Calculations of the various terms in the kinetic energy budget of the atmosphere were carried out for the area of the British Isles using aerological data for the period 1974–76. The residual term (‘dissipation’) necessary to balance the equation is interpreted as representing the forcing effect of sub‐grid scale processes. The results are compared with earlier calculations for the same area, and with corresponding results for the area of North America.The results show that the annual mean dissipation of kinetic energy in the boundary layer (below 850 mb) is 3.4 Wm−2, which is considerably larger than that found for the area of North America. The corresponding values for winter, spring, summer and autumn are 6.2, 2.3, 2.0 and 3.2 Wm−2, respectively.Results for the British Isles in the free atmosphere are very different from those for North America. Whereas there is, on average, generation of kinetic energy by pressure forces (−V.▽Φ > 0) and net export of kinetic energy over North America, the contrary is true over the British Isles.The mean residual term in the kinetic energy equation over the British Isles is relatively small between about 850 and 400 mb. However, higher up, the term is definitely positive, indicating (if interpreted physically) an energy input from sub‐grid scales to the synoptic scale: a situation opposite to that prevailing, in the annual mean, over North America. It is suggested that this ‘negative viscosity’ phenomenon may in general be typical for diffluent flows (such as are found in the exit areas of jet streams) and could be due to horizontal and vertical convergence of momentum flux associated with jet streaks and other sub‐grid scale phenomena.