Little Penguins

[Neil Fitzgerald]

Amanda J. Peucker, Peter Dann and Christopher P. Burridge 2009. Range-Wide Phylogeography of the Little Penguin (Eudyptula minor): Evidence of Long-Distance Dispersal. The Auk 126(2):397–408, 2009.

Abstract
The Little Penguin (Eudyptula minor), a colonial-nesting seabird that is widespread in New Zealand and southern Australia, has high dispersal potential but exhibits regional variation in morphology, coloration, and breeding phenology. We present a distribution-wide survey of mitochondrial DNA variation in the Little Penguin to document phylogeographic relationships and genetic structuring and to test for concordance with intraspecific taxonomy. Phylogeographic structuring was absent among Australian colonies (27 localities, 94 individuals), but the distribution of haplotypes among colonies was significantly nonrandom (ST = 0.110, P < 0.01). The Australian individuals exhibited close phylogenetic relationships with a subset of New Zealand birds (4 localities, 22 individuals), whereas the remaining New Zealand birds (20 localities, 106 individuals) were phylogenetically distinct, with ≥7% sequence divergence, and exhibited greater levels of genetic variation and geographic structuring (ST = 0.774, P < 0.05). These patterns are consistent with earlier suggestions of an origin in New Zealand followed by recent colonization of Australia and back-dispersal to New Zealand. Extinction and re-establishment processes may have been important factors in the development of genetic structuring across a range of spatiotemporal scales. The genetic data are consistent with suggestions that a single subspecies exists in Australia, but not with the subspecies distributions within New Zealand that have been suggested on the basis of morphology and coloration.

Full paper seems to be accessible at http://www.zoo.utas.edu.au/cb/pdfs/Peucker.pdf

[Nick Allen]

Sounds like they came to a similar conclusion to that which Jonathan Banks and co did a few years ago with his research on Blue Penguin genetics, see Notornis (2002) 49:29-38.

[Neil Fitzgerald]

Thanks Nick. That is one of the free issues too, for those who don't have it:
An unexpected pattern of molecular divergence within the blue penguin (Eudyptula minor) complex

[Ian Southey]

Given that people have never known for sure how many kinds of Blue Penguins there are. This is the first attempt in a long time to gather data over the whole range so this is an interesting paper. Unfortunately the relationships suggested by the tree on pages 400 and 401 are really messy and show either that Blue Penguins move widely and breed wherever they turn up or that these are sequences have been inherited from a common ancestor and not changed while other things have evolved. The authors suggest the first option and give some evidence for it.

Looking closer at the tree show that some clades are mostly from the same general areas so there may be real structure. At the base of the tree the first split is between birds from Australia and the Otago coast on one hand and the rest of New Zealand on the other. The New Zealand group gets even messier but there are groups more or less from the Chatham Islands and the West Coast. The next branch down has a group of mainly White-flippered Penguins with some Blues form the north coast of the South Island At the base of the tree there are two groups that are not well resolved but the botton left group has birds from the North Island and Cook Strait while on the bottom right are birds from the north coast of the South Island with some White-flippered birds.

There is more than a passing correspondence with Falla and Kinsky although an Otago group was not expected and Cook Strait Blue Penguins don't show much sign of having their own identity. I would also like to have seen wider sampling from the North Island to see how they grouped in the tree but it would really affect the results. This paper does not resolve the nomenclature question for me.

White-flippered and Blue types breed in the same colonies at Oamaru and on Motunau Island and there are intermediate birds in these colonies (http://notornis.org.nz/free_issues/Noto ... _4_259.pdf) but they seem quite restricted. This suggests to me that there may be key features (including colour and bill depth) that are subject to natural selection which could function as "post mating isolating mechanisms" and counteract the effects of inter-breeding. This in turn suggests that White-flippered Penguins may worth a name and makes me wonder if there are less obviously marked forms that could be different too.

Ian

[Ian Southey]

This looks like a similar paper on the Australian Little Penguins but I haven't read it yet. http://jhered.oxfordjournals.org/conten ... l.pdf+html

Ian

[Ian Southey]

Some confirmation that we have two kinds of Little Blue Penguins in New Zealand but still no practical way to tell them apart as far as I can see https://www.researchgate.net/publicatio ... heniscidae

Ian