Date:
November 11, 2015
Source:
Pensoft Publishers
They
might be looking quite identical, while perched above humanised farmlands and
grasslands across several continents, but each of the populations of two owl
species, living in the opposite hemispheres, might actually turn out to be yet
another kind. This suggestion has been made by Dr. Nelson Colihueque and his
team from Universidad de Los Lagos, Chile, based on new genetic divergence
analyses of the Common Barn and the Short-eared Owl populations from southern
Chile and comparing them with those from other geographic areas. The study is
published in the open-access journal ZooKeys.
Although
much has been known about the two widespread owl species, the knowledge about
them has so far been restricted mainly to aspects such as their diet,
conservation status and habitats. On the other hand, their genetic divergence
in comparison with populations in distant areas has received little attention.
Moreover, their taxonomical status is still based on traditional identification
rather than modern methods such as the herein utilised mitochondrial COI
sequencing.
Thus,
the Chilean research team concluded a significant genetic divergence among the
populations of both species from a few distinctive groups. In the case of the
Common Barn Owl they compared the new analysis of its South American
representatives with already available such data about populations from North
America, Northern Europe and Australasia. For the Short-eared Owl, they
compared Chilean and Argentinean birds with North American and North Asian.
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