Rapid radiation of Southern Ocean shags in response to receding sea ice

Aim:

Understanding how wild populations respond to climatic shifts is a fundamental goal of biological research in a fast-changing world. The Southern Ocean represents a fascinating system for assessing large-scale climate-driven biological change, as it contains extremely isolated island groups within a predominantly westerly, circumpolar wind and current system. The blue-eyed shags (Leucocarbo spp.) represent a paradoxical Southern Ocean seabird radiation; a circumpolar distribution implies strong dispersal capacity yet their speciose nature suggests local adaptation and isolation. Here we use genetic tools in an attempt to resolve this paradox.

Location:

Southern Ocean.

Taxa:

17 species and subspecies of blue-eyed shags (Leucocarbo spp.) across the geographical distribution of the genus.

Methods:

Here we use mitochondrial and nuclear sequence data to conduct the first global genetic analysis of this group using a temporal phylogenetic framework to test for rapid ...