Abstract
Abstract The Resplendent Quetzal (Pharomachrus mocinno) is a threatened bird species classified into two putative subspecies (P. m. mocinno and P. m. costaricensis) and distributed in cloud forests of seven countries in Mesoamerica. Because the birds are rare, tissue samples are difficult to obtain, but we analyzed genetic diversity in 25 quetzals from five countries based on 255 bp of domain I of the control region of mitochondrial DNA. Eight haplotypes were detected. Nucleotide diversity for Mexico (P. m. mocinno: 0.0021) and Panama (P. m. costaricensis: 0.0026) were low, and did not differ from the values estimated for other birds species irrespective of whether they were endangered. A haplotype tree rooted with the Pavonine Quetzal (P. pavoninus) recovered two reciprocally monophyletic clades corresponding to each subspecies, so we propose that each subspecies be considered as an evolutionarily significant unit for conservation planning. A minimum spanning network showed the number of genetic differen...
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