• Login
    View Item 
    •   Home
    • Massey Documents by Type
    • Journal Articles
    • View Item
    •   Home
    • Massey Documents by Type
    • Journal Articles
    • View Item
    JavaScript is disabled for your browser. Some features of this site may not work without it.

    The Molecular Ecology of the Extinct New Zealand Huia

    Icon
    View/Open Full Text
    2009_Lambert.pdf (376.9Kb)
    Abstract
    The extinct Huia (Heteralocha acutirostris) of New Zealand represents the most extreme example of beak dimorphism known in birds. We used a combination of nuclear genotyping methods, molecular sexing, and morphometric analyses of museum specimens collected in the late 19th and early 20th centuries to quantify the sexual dimorphism and population structure of this extraordinary species. We report that the classical description of Huia as having distinctive sex-linked morphologies is not universally correct. Four Huia, sexed as females had short beaks and, on this basis, were indistinguishable from males. Hence, we suggest it is likely that Huia males and females were indistinguishable as juveniles and that the well-known beak dimorphism is the result of differential beak growth rates in males and females. Furthermore, we tested the prediction that the social organisation and limited powers of flight of Huia resulted in high levels of population genetic structure. Using a suite of microsatellite DNA loci, we report high levels of genetic diversity in Huia, and we detected no significant population genetic structure. In addition, using mitochondrial hypervariable region sequences, and likely mutation rates and generation times, we estimated that the census population size of Huia was moderately high. We conclude that the social organization and limited powers of flight did not result in a highly structured population.
    Citation
    Lambert, D. M., Shepherd, L. D., Huynen, L., Beans-Picón, G., Walter, G. H., & Millar, C. D. (2009). The Molecular Ecology of the Extinct New Zealand Huia. Plos One, 4(11), e8019. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0008019
    Date
    2009-11-25
    Author
    Lambert, David M.
    Shepherd, Lara D.
    Huynen, Leon
    Beans-Picón, Gabrielle
    Walter, Gimme H.
    Millar, Craig D.
    Rights
    2009 Lambert et al. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
    Publisher
    PLoS One
    Description
    Funding: This research was supported by Griffith University, the Marsden Fund and the Allan Wilson Centre for Molecular Ecology and Evolution. The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.
    URI
    http://hdl.handle.net/10179/9729
    Collections
    • Journal Articles
    Metadata
    Show full item record

    Copyright © 2018 Massey University
    Contact Us | Send Feedback | Copyright Take Down Request
    DSpace software copyright © Duraspace
    v5.7-14.09.11
     

     

    Tweets by @Massey_Research
    Information PagesContent PolicyDepositing content to MROCopyright and Access InformationDeposit LicenseDeposit License SummaryTheses FAQFile Formats

    Browse

    All of MROCommunities & CollectionsBy Issue DateAuthorsTitlesSubjectsThis CollectionBy Issue DateAuthorsTitlesSubjects

    My Account

    LoginRegister

    Statistics

    View Usage Statistics

    Copyright © 2018 Massey University
    Contact Us | Send Feedback | Copyright Take Down Request
    DSpace software copyright © Duraspace
    v5.7-14.09.11