Yellow-tufted Honeyeater - Lichenostomus melanops
Aug 2, 2019 5:25:14 GMT
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Post by Eaglehawk on Aug 2, 2019 5:25:14 GMT
Yellow-tufted Honeyeater - Lichenostomus melanops
Scientific classification
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Chordata
Class: Aves
Order: Passeriformes
Family: Meliphagidae
Genus: Lichenostomus
Species: Lichenostomus melanops Latham, 1801
The yellow-tufted honeyeater (Lichenostomus melanops) is a passerine bird found in the south-east ranges of Australia from south-east Queensland through eastern New South Wales and across Victoria into the tip of Southeastern South Australia. A predominantly black and yellow honeyeater, it is split into three subspecies.
Taxonomy
The yellow-tufted honeyeater was first described by the English ornithologist John Latham in 1801 and given two different binomial names: Muscicapa auricomis and Turdus melanops. The latter name was retained as a nomen protectum and the former a nomen oblitum as the epithet melanops has been used consistently for over a century. It belongs to the honeyeater family Meliphagidae. More recently, DNA analysis has shown honeyeaters to be related to the Pardalotidae, and the Petroicidae (Australian robins) in a large corvid superfamily; some researchers considering all these families in a broadly defined Corvidae.
Subspecies
Four races are recognised:
[*]L. m. gippslandicus, Gippsland Yellow-tufted Honeyeater
[*]L. m. melanops, Sydney Yellow-tufted Honeyeater
[*]L. m. meltoni, Inland Yellow-tufted Honeyeater, smaller and duller in plumage with a smaller tuft, described by G. M. Mathews in 1912.[/ul]
Description
It is 17–23 cm long, with females usually smaller, and has a bright yellow forehead, crown and throat, a black mask and a yellow ear and forehead tuft. The back is olive-green and underparts more olive-yellow.
Distribution and habitat
The helmeted honeyeater subspecies is largely restricted to dense vegetation along riverbanks, dominated by the mountain swamp gum (Eucalyptus camphora) with a dense understorey of sedges and tussock grasses.
Diet
Food includes lerps and other invertebrates, as well as nectar from eucalypts and other flowers.
Breeding
Breeding takes place between July and January, with one or two broods each season. The nest is a cup-shaped structure of dried grasses, bits of bark and other plant material usually in a fork of a tree 3–4 m (9.8–13.1 ft) above the ground. Two or three eggs are laid, pinkish in colour blotched with pale reddish- or buff-brown.
Status
Yellow-tufted honeyeaters, as a species, are not listed as threatened on the Australian Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act 1999 or on any state-based legislation. However, at the subspecies level, the helmeted honeyeater (L. m. cassidix) is considered to be a threatened species:
Repairing harmful effects of inbreeding could save the iconic Helmeted Honeyeater
by Monash University
Helmeted Honeyeaters are being bred under a captive breeding program for reintroduction into the wild over time, in hopes to increase their population and save the endangered species from extinction in the wild. Credit: Dylan Sanusi-Goh, CC BY 4.0
Habitat destruction results in wildlife populations that are small, made up of relatives, and have low genetic variation.
Breeding between relatives (inbreeding) has harmful effects called 'inbreeding depression', often experienced as a shortened life, a poor breeder, or even death.
Not surprisingly then, most animals avoid breeding with their relatives. But when populations become too small, it becomes impossible to find a mate who is not some kind of relation.
Research published today in Current Biology by a collaborative research team led by Monash University reveals just how much damage is done by inbreeding in the critically endangered Helmeted Honeyeater.
Professor Paul Sunnucks from Monash University's School of Biological Sciences, who led the study said the findings have wide-ranging implications for wildlife management.
"Our study combines over 30 years of demanding fieldwork and advanced genetics to quantify how much harm is done by inbreeding in the last wild population of the Helmeted Honeyeater, and identifies ways forward," Professor Sunnucks said.
The Monash-led study involved collaboration with Zoos Victoria, the Victorian Department of Environment, Land, Water and Planning (DELWP), and other conservation partners, with funding from the Australian Research Council. The Helmeted Honeyeater, named for its 'helmet' of head feathers, is a much-loved State emblem found only in a small region of the State of Victoria.
Since European settlement of Australia, a staggering 99% of the floodplain forest essential for Helmeted Honeyeaters has been converted to agricultural land and towns. Consequently, only 50 wild Helmeted Honeyeaters remained by 1989. Thanks to conservation actions including captive breeding at Healesville Sanctuary and habitat restoration, there are now about 230 free-living Helmeted Honeyeaters, living precariously in a single location, Yellingbo Nature Conservation Reserve.
The Helmeted Honeyeater would now very likely be extinct if not for those 30 years of conservation actions involving DELWP, Zoos Victoria, Parks Victoria, Melbourne Water, and hundreds of passionate volunteers centred on the Friends of the Helmeted Honeyeater.
"Most Helmeted Honeyeaters over that time have been given coloured leg-bands so that their success in life and love can be followed," said DELWP Senior Ornithologist Bruce Quin, who led the monitoring.
The result is a detailed account of how long each of the birds lived and how many offspring they had in their lifetimes. Combining this information on breeding success with advanced genetic analysis, the research team could quantify the profound damage caused to Helmeted Honeyeaters by inbreeding: the most inbred birds produced only one-tenth as many young as the least inbred.
"Clearly, inbreeding depression is likely to impact the population's chances of survival," said the paper's first author Dr. Katherine Harrisson, a Monash Ph.D. graduate now at La Trobe University, and the Arthur Rylah Institute (DELWP).
While inbreeding depression is a big problem, it can be reduced by bringing in 'new blood' from a closely-related population. Such 'gene pool mixing' is an emerging approach to help threatened species. But the wild population of Helmeted Honeyeater is the last of its kind, so where can new genes come from?
Helmeted Honeyeaters are the most distinctive subspecies of the widespread Yellow-tufted honeyeater. In careful trials of gene pool mixing, Zoos Victoria has cross-bred Helmeted Honeyeaters with members of the most similar other subspecies. "Mixing the two subspecies in captivity is going very well, with no signs of genetic or other problems," said Dr. Michael Magrath, a Senior Research Manager from Zoos Victoria. "We have plans to release the first out-crossed birds into the wild population at Yellingbo soon," he said.
Professor Sunnucks said that all being well, gene pool mixing could help overcome the burden of inbreeding depression and bolster an enduring recovery of the Helmeted Honeyeater.
phys.org/news/2019-08-effects-inbreeding-iconic-helmeted-honeyeater.html
Journal Reference:
Katherine A. Harrisson, Michael J.L. Magrath, Jian D.L. Yen, Alexandra Pavlova, Neil Murray, Bruce Quin, Peter Menkhorst, Kimberly A. Miller, and others, Lifetime Fitness Costs of Inbreeding and Being Inbred in a Critically Endangered Bird Current Biology Published online: August 1, 2019
Summary
Reduced fitness as a result of inbreeding is a major threat facing many species of conservation concern. However, few case studies for assessing the magnitude of inbreeding depression in the wild means that its relative importance as a risk factor for population persistence remains under-appreciated. The increasing availability and affordability of genomic technologies provide new opportunities to address knowledge gaps around the magnitude and manifestation of inbreeding depression in wild populations. Here, we combine over three decades of individual lifetime reproductive data and genomic data to estimate the relative lifetime and short-term fitness costs of both being inbred and engaging in inbreeding in the last wild population (<250 individuals remaining) of an iconic and critically endangered bird: the helmeted honeyeater Lichenostomus melanops cassidix. The magnitude of inbreeding depression was substantial: the mean predicted lifetime reproductive success of the most inbred (homozygosity = 0.82) individuals was on average 87%–90% lower than that of the least inbred (homozygosity = 0.75). For individual reproductive events and lifetime measures, we provide rare empirical evidence that pairing with a genetically dissimilar individual can reduce fitness costs associated with being an inbred individual. By comparing lifetime and short-term fitness measures, we demonstrate how short-term measures of reproductive success that are associated with only weak signatures of inbreeding depression can still underlie stronger lifetime effects. Our study represents a valuable case study, highlighting the critical importance of inbreeding depression as a factor influencing the immediate viability of populations in threatened species management.
www.cell.com/current-biology/fulltext/S0960-9822(19)30791-2#
Scientific classification
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Chordata
Class: Aves
Order: Passeriformes
Family: Meliphagidae
Genus: Lichenostomus
Species: Lichenostomus melanops Latham, 1801
The yellow-tufted honeyeater (Lichenostomus melanops) is a passerine bird found in the south-east ranges of Australia from south-east Queensland through eastern New South Wales and across Victoria into the tip of Southeastern South Australia. A predominantly black and yellow honeyeater, it is split into three subspecies.
Taxonomy
The yellow-tufted honeyeater was first described by the English ornithologist John Latham in 1801 and given two different binomial names: Muscicapa auricomis and Turdus melanops. The latter name was retained as a nomen protectum and the former a nomen oblitum as the epithet melanops has been used consistently for over a century. It belongs to the honeyeater family Meliphagidae. More recently, DNA analysis has shown honeyeaters to be related to the Pardalotidae, and the Petroicidae (Australian robins) in a large corvid superfamily; some researchers considering all these families in a broadly defined Corvidae.
Subspecies
Four races are recognised:
[*]L. m. gippslandicus, Gippsland Yellow-tufted Honeyeater
[*]L. m. melanops, Sydney Yellow-tufted Honeyeater
[*]L. m. meltoni, Inland Yellow-tufted Honeyeater, smaller and duller in plumage with a smaller tuft, described by G. M. Mathews in 1912.[/ul]
Description
It is 17–23 cm long, with females usually smaller, and has a bright yellow forehead, crown and throat, a black mask and a yellow ear and forehead tuft. The back is olive-green and underparts more olive-yellow.
Distribution and habitat
The helmeted honeyeater subspecies is largely restricted to dense vegetation along riverbanks, dominated by the mountain swamp gum (Eucalyptus camphora) with a dense understorey of sedges and tussock grasses.
Diet
Food includes lerps and other invertebrates, as well as nectar from eucalypts and other flowers.
Breeding
Breeding takes place between July and January, with one or two broods each season. The nest is a cup-shaped structure of dried grasses, bits of bark and other plant material usually in a fork of a tree 3–4 m (9.8–13.1 ft) above the ground. Two or three eggs are laid, pinkish in colour blotched with pale reddish- or buff-brown.
Status
Yellow-tufted honeyeaters, as a species, are not listed as threatened on the Australian Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act 1999 or on any state-based legislation. However, at the subspecies level, the helmeted honeyeater (L. m. cassidix) is considered to be a threatened species:
Repairing harmful effects of inbreeding could save the iconic Helmeted Honeyeater
by Monash University
Helmeted Honeyeaters are being bred under a captive breeding program for reintroduction into the wild over time, in hopes to increase their population and save the endangered species from extinction in the wild. Credit: Dylan Sanusi-Goh, CC BY 4.0
Habitat destruction results in wildlife populations that are small, made up of relatives, and have low genetic variation.
Breeding between relatives (inbreeding) has harmful effects called 'inbreeding depression', often experienced as a shortened life, a poor breeder, or even death.
Not surprisingly then, most animals avoid breeding with their relatives. But when populations become too small, it becomes impossible to find a mate who is not some kind of relation.
Research published today in Current Biology by a collaborative research team led by Monash University reveals just how much damage is done by inbreeding in the critically endangered Helmeted Honeyeater.
Professor Paul Sunnucks from Monash University's School of Biological Sciences, who led the study said the findings have wide-ranging implications for wildlife management.
"Our study combines over 30 years of demanding fieldwork and advanced genetics to quantify how much harm is done by inbreeding in the last wild population of the Helmeted Honeyeater, and identifies ways forward," Professor Sunnucks said.
The Monash-led study involved collaboration with Zoos Victoria, the Victorian Department of Environment, Land, Water and Planning (DELWP), and other conservation partners, with funding from the Australian Research Council. The Helmeted Honeyeater, named for its 'helmet' of head feathers, is a much-loved State emblem found only in a small region of the State of Victoria.
Since European settlement of Australia, a staggering 99% of the floodplain forest essential for Helmeted Honeyeaters has been converted to agricultural land and towns. Consequently, only 50 wild Helmeted Honeyeaters remained by 1989. Thanks to conservation actions including captive breeding at Healesville Sanctuary and habitat restoration, there are now about 230 free-living Helmeted Honeyeaters, living precariously in a single location, Yellingbo Nature Conservation Reserve.
The Helmeted Honeyeater would now very likely be extinct if not for those 30 years of conservation actions involving DELWP, Zoos Victoria, Parks Victoria, Melbourne Water, and hundreds of passionate volunteers centred on the Friends of the Helmeted Honeyeater.
"Most Helmeted Honeyeaters over that time have been given coloured leg-bands so that their success in life and love can be followed," said DELWP Senior Ornithologist Bruce Quin, who led the monitoring.
The result is a detailed account of how long each of the birds lived and how many offspring they had in their lifetimes. Combining this information on breeding success with advanced genetic analysis, the research team could quantify the profound damage caused to Helmeted Honeyeaters by inbreeding: the most inbred birds produced only one-tenth as many young as the least inbred.
"Clearly, inbreeding depression is likely to impact the population's chances of survival," said the paper's first author Dr. Katherine Harrisson, a Monash Ph.D. graduate now at La Trobe University, and the Arthur Rylah Institute (DELWP).
While inbreeding depression is a big problem, it can be reduced by bringing in 'new blood' from a closely-related population. Such 'gene pool mixing' is an emerging approach to help threatened species. But the wild population of Helmeted Honeyeater is the last of its kind, so where can new genes come from?
Helmeted Honeyeaters are the most distinctive subspecies of the widespread Yellow-tufted honeyeater. In careful trials of gene pool mixing, Zoos Victoria has cross-bred Helmeted Honeyeaters with members of the most similar other subspecies. "Mixing the two subspecies in captivity is going very well, with no signs of genetic or other problems," said Dr. Michael Magrath, a Senior Research Manager from Zoos Victoria. "We have plans to release the first out-crossed birds into the wild population at Yellingbo soon," he said.
Professor Sunnucks said that all being well, gene pool mixing could help overcome the burden of inbreeding depression and bolster an enduring recovery of the Helmeted Honeyeater.
phys.org/news/2019-08-effects-inbreeding-iconic-helmeted-honeyeater.html
Journal Reference:
Katherine A. Harrisson, Michael J.L. Magrath, Jian D.L. Yen, Alexandra Pavlova, Neil Murray, Bruce Quin, Peter Menkhorst, Kimberly A. Miller, and others, Lifetime Fitness Costs of Inbreeding and Being Inbred in a Critically Endangered Bird Current Biology Published online: August 1, 2019
Summary
Reduced fitness as a result of inbreeding is a major threat facing many species of conservation concern. However, few case studies for assessing the magnitude of inbreeding depression in the wild means that its relative importance as a risk factor for population persistence remains under-appreciated. The increasing availability and affordability of genomic technologies provide new opportunities to address knowledge gaps around the magnitude and manifestation of inbreeding depression in wild populations. Here, we combine over three decades of individual lifetime reproductive data and genomic data to estimate the relative lifetime and short-term fitness costs of both being inbred and engaging in inbreeding in the last wild population (<250 individuals remaining) of an iconic and critically endangered bird: the helmeted honeyeater Lichenostomus melanops cassidix. The magnitude of inbreeding depression was substantial: the mean predicted lifetime reproductive success of the most inbred (homozygosity = 0.82) individuals was on average 87%–90% lower than that of the least inbred (homozygosity = 0.75). For individual reproductive events and lifetime measures, we provide rare empirical evidence that pairing with a genetically dissimilar individual can reduce fitness costs associated with being an inbred individual. By comparing lifetime and short-term fitness measures, we demonstrate how short-term measures of reproductive success that are associated with only weak signatures of inbreeding depression can still underlie stronger lifetime effects. Our study represents a valuable case study, highlighting the critical importance of inbreeding depression as a factor influencing the immediate viability of populations in threatened species management.
www.cell.com/current-biology/fulltext/S0960-9822(19)30791-2#