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Publication Details
AFRICAN RESEARCH NEXUS
SHINING A SPOTLIGHT ON AFRICAN RESEARCH
agricultural and biological sciences
Genomic Variation and Recent Population Histories of Spotted (Strix occidentalis) and Barred (Strix varia) Owls
Genome Biology and Evolution, Volume 13, No. 5, Article evab066, Year 2021
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Description
Spotted owls (SOs, Strix occidentalis) are a flagship species inhabiting old-growth forests in western North America. In recent decades, their populations have declined due to ongoing reductions in suitable habitat caused by logging, wildfires, and competition with the congeneric barred owl (BO, Strix varia). The northern spotted owl (S. o. caurina) has been listed as "threatened"under the Endangered Species Act since 1990. Here, we use an updated SO genome assembly along with 51 high-coverage whole-genome sequences to examine population structure, hybridization, and recent changes in population size in SO and BO. We found that potential hybrids identified from intermediate plumage morphology were a mixture of pure BO, F1 hybrids, and F1 × BO backcrosses. Also, although SO underwent a population bottleneck around the time of the Pleistocene-Holocene transition, their population sizes rebounded and show no evidence of any historical (i.e., 100-10,000 years ago) population decline. This suggests that the current decrease in SO abundance is due to events in the past century. Finally, we estimate that western and eastern BOs have been genetically separated for thousands of years, instead of the previously assumed recent (i.e., <150 years) divergence. Although this result is surprising, it is unclear where the ancestors of western BO lived after the separation. In particular, although BO may have colonized western North America much earlier than the first recorded observations, it is also possible that the estimated divergence time reflects unsampled BO population structure within central or eastern North America. © 2021 The Author(s) 2021. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the Society for Molecular Biology and Evolution.
Authors & Co-Authors
Levy-Sakin, Michal
United States, San Francisco
University of California, San Francisco
Bowie, Rauri C. K.
United States, Berkeley
University of California, Berkeley
Kwok, Puiyan Yan
United States, San Francisco
University of California, San Francisco
Dumbacher, John Philip
United States, San Francisco
California Academy of Sciences
Wall, Jeffrey D.
United States, San Francisco
University of California, San Francisco
Statistics
Citations: 1
Authors: 5
Affiliations: 3
Identifiers
Doi:
10.1093/gbe/evab066
ISSN:
17596653
Research Areas
Genetics And Genomics
Health System And Policy
Study Design
Cross Sectional Study