Molecular Genetic Divergence between Avian Sibling Species: King and Clapper Rails, Long-Billed and Short-Billed Dowitchers, Boat-Tailed and Great-Tailed Grackles, and Tufted and Black-Crested Titmice

Abstract

Abstract Surveys of electrophoretic variation in proteins, and restriction site variation in mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA), were conducted to assess the resolving power of these molecular genetic techniques to distinguish four pairs of avian sibling taxa. Samples of rails (Rallus elegans and R. longirostris), dowitchers (Limnodromus scolopaceus and L. griseus), grackles (Quiscalus major and Q. mexicanus), and titmice (Parus bicolor bicolor and P. b. atricristatus) were assayed for allozymes encoded by 34-37 nuclear loci, and for an average of 77 mtDNA restriction sites per individual by 19 endonucleases. MtDNA's of the two rail species showed large-scale size polymorphism and individual heteroplasmy, the first such findings of these molecular features in an avian species. Genetic distances based on allozyme comparisons were small for all assayed taxa (Nei's D ≤ 0.063). The mtDNA assays offered consistently greater resolving power, providing at least five fixed restriction site differences for samples of any taxon pair. The Long-billed and Short-billed dowitchers were especially divergent, differing by at least 24 assayed mtDNA restriction sites and an estimated nucleotide sequence divergence of p = 0.082. We compared these results to previous reports of genetic distances within and among closely related bird species. The mtDNA divergence among dowitchers is near the high end of the scale of such estimates for avian congeners. The mtDNA distances between the pairs of rails (p = 0.006), titmice (p = 0.004), and grackles (p = 0.016) were typical for extremely closely related species, and overlap maximum values reported for some avian conspecifics.