ancient dna elucidates the controversy about the flightless island hens (gallinula sp.) of tristan da cunha古代dna所说的争论不会飞的岛母鸡特里斯坦-达库尼亚群岛(gallinula sp).pdfVIP

Ancient DNA Elucidates the Controversy about the Flightless Island Hens (Gallinula sp.) of Tristan da Cunha 1 2 ´ 1 1,3 Dick S. J. Groenenberg *, Albert J. Beintema , Rene W. R. J. Dekker , Edmund Gittenberger 1 National Museum of Natural History Naturalis, Leiden, The Netherlands, 2 Biowrite, Gorssel, The Netherlands, 3 Institute of Biology, Leiden University, Leiden, The Netherlands Abstract A persistent controversy surrounds the flightless island hen of Tristan da Cunha, Gallinula nesiotis. Some believe that it became extinct by the end of the 19th century. Others suppose that it still inhabits Tristan. There is no consensus about Gallinula comeri, the name introduced for the flightless moorhen from the nearby island of Gough. On the basis of DNA sequencing of both recently collected and historical material, we conclude that G. nesiotis and G. comeri are different taxa, that G. nesiotis indeed became extinct, and that G. comeri now inhabits both islands. This study confirms that among gallinules seemingly radical adaptations (such as the loss of flight) can readily evolve in parallel on different islands, while conspicuous changes in other morphological characters fail to occur. Citation: Groenenberg DSJ, Beintema AJ, Dekker RWRJ, Gittenberger E (2008) Ancient DNA Elucidates the Controversy about the Flightless Island Hens (Gallinula sp.) of Tristan da Cunha. PLoS ONE 3(3): e1835. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0001835 ´ Editor: Jean-Nicolas Volff, Ecole Normale Superieure de Lyon, France Received October 3, 2007; Accepted February 17, 2008; Published March 19, 2008 Copyright: 2008 Groenenberg et al. This is an open-access article distributed under