Genetic Load and Adaptive Potential of a Recovered Avian Species that Narrowly Avoided Extinction.

High genetic diversity is a good predictor of long-term population viability, yet some species persevere despite having low genetic diversity. Here we study the genomic erosion of the Seychelles paradise flycatcher (Terpsiphone corvina), a species that narrowly avoided extinction after having declined to 28 individuals in the 1960s. The species recovered unassisted to over 250 individuals in the 1990s and was downlisted from Critically Endangered to Vulnerable in the International Union for the Conservation of Nature Red List in 2020.

Comparison of historical bottleneck effects and genetic consequences of re-introduction in a critically endangered island passerine.

Re-introduction is an important tool for recovering endangered species; however, the magnitude of genetic consequences for re-introduced populations remains largely unknown, in particular the relative impacts of historical population bottlenecks compared to those induced by conservation management. We characterize 14 microsatellite loci developed for the Seychelles paradise flycatcher and use them to quantify temporal and spatial measures of genetic variation across a 134-year time frame encompassing a historical bottleneck that reduced the species to ~28 individuals in the 1960s, through the initial stages of recovery and across a second contemporary conservation-introduction-induced bottleneck. We then evaluate the relative impacts of the two bottlenecks, and finally apply our findings to inform broader re-introduction strategy.

Molecular phylogeny of the Indian Ocean Terpsiphone paradise flycatchers: undetected evolutionary diversity revealed amongst island populations.

We construct a molecular phylogeny of Terpsiphone flycatchers of the Indian Ocean and use this to investigate their evolutionary relationships. A total of 4.4 kb of mitochondrial (cyt-b, ND3, ND2, control region) and nuclear (G3PDH, MC1R) sequence data were obtained from all species, sub-species and island populations of the region.

Experimental evidence for density-dependent reproduction in a cooperatively breeding passerine.

Temporal variation in survival, fecundity, and dispersal rates is associated with density-dependent and density-independent processes. Stable natural populations are expected to be regulated by density-dependent factors. However, detecting this by investigating natural variation in density is difficult because density-dependent and independent factors affecting population dynamics may covary.