Phylogenetic affinities of the Whenua Hou Diving Petrel: implications for conservation

ABSTRACT

Diving petrels (genus Pelecanoides) are a group of small Southern Ocean seabirds whose taxonomy has remained problematic due to a lack of morphological diversity between species and limited availability of genetic data. Here we examine the phylogenetic relationships of the Pelecanoides diving petrels with analyses of the mitochondrial cytochrome b gene, focusing in particular, on the recently described and critically endangered Whenua Hou Diving Petrel (P. whenuahouensis). Pelecanoides whenuahouensis showed only minor sequence divergence from its sister species, the South Georgian Diving Petrel (P. georgicus), comparable to divergence levels observed between subspecies of the Common Diving Petrel (P. urinatrix). The paratype of P. whenuahouensis, which was collected from the now extinct population on the Auckland Islands, is genetically indistinguishable from P. georgicus raising the question of which species formerly bred on these subantarctic islands. Our genetic analyses provide insights into the phylogeography and evolutionary history of Pelecanoides and will help inform the conservation of the critically endangered Whenua Hou Diving Petrel.

KEYWORDS:

• Diving petrels
• Pelecanoides
• phylogenetics
• Procellariiformes
• seabirds

Acknowledgements

We thank Ros Cole, Jo Hiscock, Stephanie Ismar, Richard Phillips and David Thompson for their collection of samples, and Tasman Gillies for assistance in the lab. We thank Martyn Kennedy for advice on analyses and many useful discussions about the results. BCR thanks the Department of Conservation and the Department of Zoology PBRF Fund for funding.

Authors contributions

BCR and AJDT conceived the study. BCR, AJDT, GT and CMM provided samples. LDS and FR performed lab work. SG performed analyses. SG, LDS, AJDT, CMM and BCR wrote the manuscript. All authors contributed to the final version of the manuscript.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Data availability statement

Cytochrome b and β-fibint7 sequences have been deposited in NCBI GenBank under accessions MW368844 - MW368865 and MW368834 - MW368843, respectively.

Supplementary material

Supplemental data for this article can be accessed here.