Evidence for the Species Status of the Bahama Yellow-Throated Warbler (Dendroica “Dominica” Flavescens)

The Bahama subspecies of the Yellow-throated Warbler (Dendroica dominica flavescens) was originally described as a species. However, it was later reclassified as a subspecies, in part because the trinomial was considered useful for demonstrating relationships. Although flavescens has been widely rep...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:The Auk 2010-10, Vol.127 (4), p.932-939
Main Authors: McKay, Bailey D, Reynolds, M. Bryant J, Hayes, William K, Lee, David S
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Allopatric species
Bahama Warbler
Biodiversity
Biological taxonomies
Bird songs
Birds
Colleges & universities
Coniferous forests
Dendroica dominica flavescens
Endangered & extinct species
Forest habitats
Plumage
Principal components analysis
Solmization
Speciation
species limits
Syllables
Systematics
Taxa
Taxonomy
Warblers
Yellow-throated Warbler
Zoology
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Summary:The Bahama subspecies of the Yellow-throated Warbler (Dendroica dominica flavescens) was originally described as a species. However, it was later reclassified as a subspecies, in part because the trinomial was considered useful for demonstrating relationships. Although flavescens has been widely reported as diagnostic in plumage and distinctive in ecology, it has remained a subspecies of D. dominica, perhaps because of the notion that its song is similar to that of continental dominica. We investigated the taxonomic status of flavescens by examining morphological, song, and genetic data. We found statistically significant differences between flavescens and continental dominica in wing chord and in bill, tarsus, and tail lengths. Discriminant function analysis correctly predicted 100% of flavescens individuals using morphological characters. Contrary to earlier accounts, we also found the ascending song of flavescens to be diagnosable from the descending song of continental dominica. Mitochondrial control-region sequence data revealed fixed differences and a 1.0% divergence between flavescens and continental dominica. Phylogenetic analysis indicated that flavescens samples form a monophyletic group and that continental dominica is paraphyletic with respect to flavescens. This is consistent with a scenario of peripatric speciation: complete lineage sorting in the flavescens population but incomplete lineage sorting in the much larger continental dominica population. We conclude that flavescens satisfies the requirements of both the biological and phylogenetic species concepts, and we therefore recommend that flavescens be reclassified as a separate species, the Bahama Warbler (Dendroica flavescens).
ISSN:0004-8038
1938-4254
2732-4613
DOI:10.1525/auk.2010.09093