It’s pretty rare that biologists find an instance where speciation appears to have occurred right in front of their very eyes, but it appears that Peter and Rosemary Grant have looked closely enough over the course of a few decades to have seen it. As Allen writes on The EvolutionList, A New Species of Finch may have Evolved in the Galapagos:

Peter and Rosemary Grant have been studying the finches of Daphne Major, a small island in the Galapagos archipelago since 1973. In PNAS, they have proposed that a population of finches on Daphne Major may be on the verge of becoming a new species of finch. Here’s how their proposal was reported at Nature.com News:

“It was in 1981, that the Grants spotted an unusually heavy medium ground-finch (Geospiza fortis). At 29.7 grams, the male was more than 5 grams heavier than any they had seen on Daphne Major before. Genetic analysis showed that it probably came from the neighbouring island of Santa Cruz.

The Grants numbered the bird 5110 and followed it and all its known descendants over seven generations. Many of its descendants stuck out from the other G. fortis on Daphne Major: they had unusually shaped beaks and their songs differed from those of the other finches.

…

In the fourth generation, a severe drought hit the island and 5110’s descendants were reduced to one male and one female — a brother and sister. From then on the immigrant lineage isolated itself, breeding with no other G. fortis on the island….

Go check out the rest of Allen’s post for his analysis, and check out the article in PNAS as well. The Grants present the take-home message there in the final part of the abstract: “The study reveals additional stochastic elements of speciation, in which divergence is initiated in allopatry; immigration to a new area of a single male hybrid and initial breeding with a rare hybrid female.”

A little more than a week ago, BirdLife Cyprus’s field trip officer Stavros Christodoulides was put into contact with a Larnaca-area taxidermist who reportedly had been given three Little Bustards Tetrax tetrax to stuff over the last two years. Why is that interesting, you ask? Because the presence of Little Bustards in Cyprus is news to just about anyone who studies or tracks birds. They were never common here, but none has been reported since 1998. Stavros visited the taxidermist to see the specimens for himself, and they’re the real thing. He took a few pictures and I’m sure will write-up a report for either the monthly newsletter or the quarterly magazine for BirdLife Cyprus. I will of course post that when it comes out.

Unfortunately it was the hunters who found the birds, as seems to be the case too frequently – hunters outnumber birders by at least 500:1 in Cyprus, and many hunters will specifically target rare and protected birds when they notice them.

Are there regularly Little Bustards here that go unseen though? Maybe. They prefer open grassland and fallow farmland for habitat, which is plentiful enough and remote enough to not get checked by those few individuals on the island interested in sighting and recording uncommon birds. Geographically, Cyprus is the right area however, smack-dab in the middle of its range from southern Europe and northwest Africa to central Asia.

More information to come when I see it in print or online.

This is an example of big science which could drive discoveries regarding evolution and more for years to come. A consortium of researchers are proposing in the Journal of Heredity to sequence the genomes of 10,000 vertebrate species! This would of course be a huge expansion from the already-sequenced 32 mammals and 24 nonmammalian vertebrate genomes.

While the Introduction and the Proposal itself are quite interesting, I thought that the Discussion really bears sharing and discussion with a wider audience. So I hope that no one objects to me re-printing it here where interested parties can comment on it…

This is from last month in The Onion, and I would have let it go as an amusing bit of satire, but I just can’t resist seeing as how I have a well-meaning but confused creationist trying to defend the idea that an organism could be created, designed, or whatever. Or maybe he’s a concern troll who accepts common descent. Hard to tell.

An early blueprint for the design of the heaven-sent creature.

God Introduces New Bird — “Our Heavenly Father has really outdone Himself this time,” ornithologist Dr. Avram Wasserbaum agreed. “Birds don’t tend to be His strong suit—take the buzzard or the dodo, for instance. This latest bird, though, has all of God’s patented design touches: splendor, grace, and an ineffable sense of timelessness. Trust me, once folks get a load of the brilliant plumage, this thing is really going to put God back on top.”

Try not to laugh: Some people really do think that this sort of thing has happened, more or less. This isn’t satire to them, it’s science.

“Rising sea levels, birds and forests on the other side of the world – all our actions are connected.” (Cathy Fitzgerald)

Go vote for Cathy at the 1 Minute to Save the World competition if you like this clip, which I found poetic and touching.

Perhaps in an effort to stir the pot so to speak, Corey at 10,000 Birds raised an interesting question a few days ago: Can Creationists Be Birders? The short answer is “Of course!” For most birders, the appreciation of birds does not extend much beyond the aesthetic beauty of the birds and the ability to match a bird with a name. That may be sufficient for some people just as knowing the names of their co-workers and acquaintances is sufficient, but when they’re finished, they know very little about the birds (or persons) themselves.

If you dig a layer deeper, a person can learn about the reproductive cycles and diets of the birds they watch. A person can also learn the geographical ranges of the birds that he or she knows. Or the quirky behaviors, flight styles, and habitat proclivities of those birds. Or all of the subtle hints that go into what birders call General Indicators of Size and Shape (GISS), which is often extended to include not just size and shape but any clue at all that can be used to distinguish what group or species of bird that may you glimpse.

An overlay of phylogeny and the biogeography for Monarch Flycatchers

Still, that’s all in the here and now — creationist and evolutionist alike can appreciate all of the above. Is there any qualitative difference in the birding experience between the two however? This is a very interesting question, for two reasons…

First, the body of knowledge that has since formed the evidence for evolution was collected by creationists first and foremost. Creationism was still considered mainstream science during this golden age of studying taxonomy and morphology. Linnaeus, certainly no evolutionist, established the system of scientific classification that we use today, and his groupings were based upon shared physical characteristics. Only his groupings for animals remain to this day, and the groupings themselves have been significantly changed since Linnaeus’ conception, as have the principles behind them. Nevertheless, Linnaeus is credited with establishing the idea of a hierarchical structure of classification which is based upon observable characteristics — something that is entirely compatible with both the concepts of special creation and speciation.

Even Charles Lyell, who established a much older age for the Earth and paved the way for gradualism, had defended the thesis of “Centers of Creation.” These Centers offered a convenient argument for not only the periodic appearance of new species in the fossil record but also the observable differences between the floura and fauna of the continents, without really explaining how they got there. So, not only taxonomy but the observations of morphology and paleontology are compatible with either hierarchical organization of Earth’s flora and fauna.

I was really excited to get the quarterly edition of BirdLife Cyprus (the magazine of BirdLife Cyprus, as it’s always packed with informational goodies. One article in particular was worth sharing, by Campaigns Officer Eleni Zissimou. I wanted to quote from it, as it details the situation in Cyprus for Important Bird Areas (IBAs) and Special Protection Areas (SPAs) representing the core efforts to protect the most vital habitat areas in Cyprus and in Europe.

A note of distinction: IBAs are descriptions on paper to signify value to ornithologists, designated by conservationist NGOs. SPAs however are designated by EU legislation, under the Birds Directive 79/409/EEC. Thus, SPAs are legislatively supposed to receive greater protection, although IBAs sometimes receive greater attention because they do not have the legal protections afforded to SPAs.

From the article:

According to the latest BirdLife Cyprus IBA inventory of 2004, there are 19 IBAs on the island, of which 16 are in the Republic. Of those, 15 have already been designated as SPAs, while the Akamas Peninsula is still outstanding. Additionally, there are a further 13 SPAs which today do not overlap with any IBAs. These were designated by the competent authority, the Game Fund in Cyprus, using ornithological data after 2004.

Protection on paper or in practices?

The 27 SPAs of the Cyprus Republic at first glance seem impressive, relative to the 15 IBAs. It is, however, ironic that these areas which are on the whole beautiful and which should be effectively protected, often seem to act as magnets for various developments that have the potential to degrade them or even destroy them, and as a consequence many today are seriously threatened. There are many reasons for this such as ownership of the land, the often not so strict implementation of the European law for environmental impact assessment, the sheer number of proposed developments and finally the apparent general lack of engagement by the Government.

Unfortunately, as with other countries, these areas are often treated as a problem and not a benefit for the future. Despite the fact that all advertisements of Cyprus abroad show beautiful areas, free of buildings and disturbance, i.e. areas like many of the IBAs or SPAs, and that it is likely that many foreign visitors expect to see on the island what they see in the pictures these areas are not effectively protected so as to remain such.

That is an excellent description of the conservation situation in Cyprus.

Guess the embryo

NOVA (PBS) has an excellent set of interactive resources for learning about evolution and development, beginning with The Zoo of You and Guess the Embryo (linked to via the image at right). I simply could not pass up sharing them for their educational value. The interactive resource is part of a larger series of informational websites and for-TV documentaries about Evolution.

Any animal, be it a blue whale, botfly, or human, starts out as a single, fertilized cell. Then the cell divides, differentiates, and ultimately develops into a full-fledged animal according to a special set of genetic instructions–a “toolkit” that tells the embryo how and where to develop limbs and organs. All animals on Earth use essentially the same toolkit, so embryos of different species can appear startlingly similar to one another. Here, try to match a series of embryos to their adult forms, and then watch each creature develop during a portion of its early growth.

In recent weeks researchers at the University of Cyprus and elsewhere across Cyprus have heard what the proposed 2010 national budget entails, and we’re pretty scared for our jobs now. The finance minister has delivered the budget to parliament, with proposed cuts to science funding of 75-80% for the coming year. These cuts would mean I personally would lose my job on January 1st, and for other scientists here as well.

The purported reasons for the cuts: the economic crisis and a general low regard for science by the controlling party (AKEL – the far left Progressive Party of Working People).

I don’t have a link for you to read about the budget yourself, because there isn’t one. Cyprus is a bit behind in using the internet…

The good thing is that the parliament has not yet approved the cuts, giving researchers and institutions that would be very adversely effected a chance to protest. So, the head of my laboratory, Dr. Paris Skourides, has written a letter criticizing the government with the help of a number of other scientists here at the University of Cyprus as well as at the Cyprus Institute for Neurology and Genetics. It’s up on PetitionOnline.com now, and we’re looking for signatories from Cyprus and possessing a PhD or are PhD candidates.

Unfortunately for English-speaking readers of this blog, the petition is in Greek. I’ve copied it below the fold if you’d like to read it though, and Google Translate does a reasonable job of translating it if you’d like to get the gist.

This is part of the series of posts Poaching in Cyprus FAQ

What Birds Are Caught And Killed By Poachers?

According to the first report on bird trapping levels by BirdLife Cyprus in 2002, more than 150 species of birds (39.5% of the total Cyprus check-list) have been recorded as caught with limesticks or mist-nets. (Hubbard 1967; Horner & Hubbard 1982; Flint & Stewart 1983; Magnin 1986). The 2002 study added seven new species to this list.

The most commonly trapped birds are passerines, forming 71.1% of the species trapped and 98.6% of the total birds trapped. Among these, the commonest are species of the family Sylvia. Although only 11% of the species trapped, they formed 87.2% of the total number of individual birds trapped. These figures, however, are likely a gross overestimate, as these figures are derived from seizures of birds from trappers. As trappers selectively favor Sylvia warblers, it is likely that prior to being intercepted by enforcement agencies, trappers also caught other species that had been killed and discarded.

For a more accurate look at what bird species are caught and killed, one must look back further, to records of trappers cooperating with researchers and reporting their results honestly. According to a 1968 study of bird liming in Cyprus, published by John P. Hubbard in 1982 and conducted with the cooperation of “bird limers” (limestick trappers), 99 species of birds were found to be trapped by limesticks. Here, the most frequently caught was the Lesser Whitethroat (5415/25201), followed by Chiffchaff (4646) and Blackcap (3946). Together these three species accounted for 55.6% of the “catch.” Also taken in large numbers were Redstarts (1325), Orphean Warblers (1062), Whitethroats (676), Willow Warblers (673), Pied/Collared Flycatchers (568), and Subalpine Warblers (654). Other numerous species were the Robin, Hoopoe, House Sparrow, and Cyprus Wheatear (all 300-400); Nightingale and Song Thrush (200-300); and Isabelline Wheatear, Spotted Flycatcher, Bonelli’s Warbler, Cuckoo, Scop’s Owl, Masked Shrike, Wryneck, Thrush-Nightingale, Reed Warbler, and Tree Pipit (all 100-200). Together, these 29 species totaled 94.4% of the “catch.” Large birds were also caught, albeit in small numbers, including Pallid Harrier, Merlin, Barn Owl, Short-eared Owl, and Long-eared Owl. Another 65 species were caught that were not included in this brief summary.

Similarly, a 1986 study by Gernant Magnin, revealed similar numbers of caught birds. They also noted 28 species then-considered to be “vulnerable species in Europe,” and 9 species with “limited global range (breeding or wintering) with important populations in Europe.

So the answer to the question posed in this post: Any bird species can be caught on limesticks and mist-nets, and close to half of the ~380 bird species recorded in Cyprus have been caught at one time or another. And limesticks are not any more selective than mist-nets on the whole.