Mitochondrial DNA analysis reveals Holarctic homogeneity and a distinct Mediterranean lineage in the Golden eagle (Aquila chrysaetos)

Abstract

The Golden eagle (Aquila chrysaetos) is among the most widespread of the birds of prey, covering basically the whole Palaearctic from Europe and North Africa through Asia and Japan, to the North American continent. Only few studies have addressed the species’ genetic structure and the consequences of its demographic history so far, and none of them has covered larger areas of the distribution range. Our present study aims at closing this gap. Based on 283 samples (mostly feathers collected in the field or from museum collections) across the species’ distribution, but with a focus on Europe, we uncover the phylogeography of the Golden eagle. Results imply a phylogeographic split between mainly Northern Europe, Continental Asia, Japan and North America on the one hand and Central–Southern Europe on the other. The observed pattern is likely to be caused by the Last Ice Age, when the population survived in two reproductively isolated glacial refugia. Repopulation of Northern Europe occurred from a presumed Asian refugium, whereas the Alpine range was probably repopulated from a refugium in the Mediterranean region. In Eastern Europe, the Mediterranean and Alpine region we find a co‐occurrence of both lineages that heavily influences the local genetic diversity. This pattern is unlike that in most other large raptors in which usually a western and an eastern Eurasian lineage have been recovered.

Nuclear and Mitochondrial DNA Analyses of Golden Eagles (Aquila chrysaetos canadensis) from Three Areas in Western North America; Initial Results and Conservation Implications

“…Three mtDNA haplotypes were identified in the dataset from the 6 Alaskan eagles provided by Domenech and Sherrington; all three matched haplotypes identified in Sonsthagen et al [17] and two matched haplotypes from our dataset ([17]; Table 2). The haplotype identified in 5 Canadian eagles by Nebel et al [9] matched haplotype GOEA04 (Fig 1). Given our current sampling, haplotype GOEA05 appears to be specific to California while haplotype GOEA06 appears specific to Idaho (Table 2; Fig 1).…”

“…Sequences were aligned by eye in Sequencher 4.7 (Gene Codes Corporation), and the number of haplotypes was determined using the filter redundant taxa option in MacClade 4.08 [38]. Golden eagle haplotypes from other studies in North America [9,17] were downloaded from Genbank (www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/genbank/). …”

Only true pelagics mix: comparative phylogeography of deepwater bathybatine cichlids from Lake Tanganyika

“…Contemporary patterns of genetic diversity and population connectivity within species are influenced by demographic history, historical and present barriers to gene flow, and the species’ active and/or passive dispersal ability (Hewitt, 2000; Ellegren & Galtier, 2016). Thus, highly vagile generalist species with great active dispersal ability typically show little phylogeographic structure, sometimes even across their entire distribution range (e.g., Koblmüller et al, 2012; Statham et al, 2014; Nebel et al, 2015; Pfeiler & Markow, 2017). This is particularly true for pelagic fishes, which are usually highly mobile with their dispersal not restricted by physical barriers (e.g., Graves & McDowell, 2003; Theisen et al, 2008; García-Rodríguez et al, 2011), even though exceptions have been reported (e.g., Perrin & Borsa, 2001; Lu et al, 2006; Fauvelot & Borsa, 2011; Sebastian et al, 2017).…”

Mitochondrial phylogenetics of the goshawkAccipiter[gentilis] superspecies

“…For Holarctic species, patterns are diverse. Within birds of prey, surprisingly high genetic homogeneity across the Holarctic (with the exception of the Mediterranean region) has been found in Golden Eagles Aquila chrysaetos (Nebel et al., ), whereas high intercontinental divergence of haplogroups has been observed for several other bird species (Johnsen et al., ; Zink, Rohwer, Drovetski, Blackwell‐Rago, & Farrell, and references therein).…”

“…We used two mitochondrial (mt) DNA markers: partial sequences of the control region ( CR ) and the cytochrome b ( cytb ) gene. These genomic regions have proved to be useful in numerous studies on differentiation in birds of prey (Lerner et al., ; Nebel et al., and references therein) and allowed us to include previously published sequences and compare results. Moreover, they have been shown to resolve both recent and deeper divergences (Lerner et al., ).…”