Journal of Heredity Advance Access originally published online on February 17, 2008
Journal of Heredity 2008 99(2):165-173; doi:10.1093/jhered/esn002
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Recent Range Expansion and Divergence among North American Prairie Grouse
From the Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, University of Michigan Museum of Zoology, 1109 Geddes Avenue, Ann Arbor, MI 48109 and The Peregrine Fund, 5668 West Flying Hawk Lane, Boise, ID 83709
Address correspondence to J. A. Johnson at an address above, or e-mail: jeffaj{at}umich.edu.
Prairie grouse (genus: Tympanuchus) once existed throughout much of North America but have recently experienced significant population declines, isolation, and extinction. In previous molecular studies, contrasting patterns or an unresolved polytomy among Tympanuchus taxa (Tympanuchus phasianellus, Tympanuchus pallidicinctus, and Tympanuchus cupido) have resulted from traditional phylogenetic methods. As an alternative approach, the timing of expansion and the demographic processes that may have lead to this association among haplotypes, namely incomplete lineage sorting or migration, were explicitly investigated by comparing pairwise mitochondrial DNA control region nucleotide differences and through the use of a isolation with migration coalescent model. The timing of geographic expansion and population divergence time estimates generated under these models support previous inferences that Tympanuchus experienced a rapid expansion and diversification in the late Pleistocene 10,000–80,000 years before present. Further, morphological and behavioral differences originally used to describe Tympanuchus species were substantiated with little or no migration identified since population divergence. However, estimates of population divergence and migration between a number of morphologically similar subspecific taxa, including the greater prairie chicken (Tympanuchus Cupido pinnatus), the endangered Attwater's prairie chicken (Tympanuchus Cupido attwateri), and the extinct heath hen (Tympanuchus Cupido cupido), suggest these taxa are as differentiated with each other as they are from other Tympanuchus species. This information will prove useful in conservation efforts by providing estimates of demographic history that have helped shape the evolutionary relationships among Tympanuchus grouse.
Corresponding Editor: William Modi
Received March 30, 2007
Accepted December 13, 2007