Phylogeography of the capercaillie in Eurasia: what is the conservation status in the Pyrenees and Cantabrian Mounts?

Abstract

International audienceThe Western capercaillie (Tetrao urogallus) is a keystone species of Palearctic boreal and altitude coniferous forests. With the increase of mountain leisure activities and habitat loss, populations are declining in most mountain ranges in Western Europe. Recent work has shown that the populations from the Pyrenees and Cantabrian Mountains survived a severe bottleneck during the 19th century, and are still considered as threatened due to habitat fragmentation and isolation with other populations. We present an extensive phylogeographic study based on mitochondrial DNA sequence (control region) extracted non-invasively from faeces collected throughout the species range (from western European mountains to central and eastern Europe, Fenno-Scandia, Russia and Siberia). We also compared our results with DNA sequences of closely related black-billed capercaillie (T. parvirostris). We found that populations from Pyrenees and Cantabrians are closely related but are different from all other capercaillie populations that form a homogenous clade. Therefore, we consider that these South-Western populations should be considered as forming an Evolutionary Significant Unit that needs an appropriate management at a local scale. We also discuss the possible locations of glacial refugia and subsequent colonisation routes in Eurasia, with a Western "aquitanus" lineage from Iberia and Balkans, and an Eastern "urogallus" lineage from Southern Asia. This work might have important implication for capercaillie conservation strategies to define important areas for conservation, and to prevent possible exchange or introductions of individuals originated from other lineages

Population genetics of the hazel hen Bonasa bonasia in Poland assessed with non-invasive samples

“…This suggests that the division of the Polish population might be more long-lasting. A strong genetic structure in the Polish population corresponding to geographical regions is also surprising given the mitochondrial phylogeography of the capercaillie [66,75,76], which shows that boundaries of morphological subspecies correspond rather weakly to genetic differentiation.…”

Phylogeography and subspecies status of Black Grouse

“…Patterns of postglacial dispersal from refugia in the southern peninsulas of Iberia, Italy and the Balkans have been described for several species, such as bears, voles, oaks (see Taberlet et al 1998) and Capercallie (Duriez et al 2007;Segelbacher and Piertney 2007). Other taxa such as Black Grouse did not follow this pattern (Bilton et al 1998).…”

“…This was refuted by Schreiber et al (1998) in an analysis of 38 allozyme loci in 95 individuals from southern Germany, Netherlands and Sweden. Subspecies were often described on the basis of a few skins kept in museums, in which colours can change with the age of the bird and the time since collection, and the skeleton was not necessarily available (Duriez et al 2007). These taxonomic divisions need to be revised in order to assess, design and implement conservation plans for a species or subspecies (Mace 2004).…”

“…These taxonomic divisions need to be revised in order to assess, design and implement conservation plans for a species or subspecies (Mace 2004). These early subspecies descriptions suffer various fates: in Capercaillie, there was not a clear genetic differentiation between three local subspecies in Finland (Liukkonen-Anttila et al 2004), nor among ten Eurasian subspecies, except for the Pyrenean birds that formed a genetically distinct unit (Segelbacher and Piertney 2007;Duriez et al 2007). In Sage-grouse, Benedict et al (2003) did not find a genetic distinction between the described eastern and western subspecies.…”

Guidelines for the re-introduction of Galliformes for conservation purposes

“…On local and regional scales, many populations of grouse are declining, particularly in densely populated and intensively used landscapes (Storch, 2000). Two recent studies on capercaillie phylogeography have shown that the cantabrian capercaillie (Tetrao urogallus cantabricus) has a high level of genetic differentiation in relation to the rest of the capercaillie subspecies (Duriez et al, 2007;Rodríguez-Muñoz et al, 2007). This is also the only capercaillie subspecies adapted to live in pure deciduous forests and qualifies as Endangered under IUCN criteria (Storch et al, 2006).…”