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North African hybrid sparrows (Passer domesticus, P. hispaniolensis) back from oblivion - ecological segregation and asymmetric mitochondrial introgression between parental species.

ABSTRACT: A stabilized hybrid form of the house sparrow (Passer domesticus) and the Spanish sparrow (P. hispaniolensis) is known as Passer italiae from the Italian Peninsula and a few Mediterranean islands. The growing attention for the Italian hybrid sparrow and increasing knowledge on its biology and genetic constitution greatly contrast the complete lack of knowledge of the long-known phenotypical hybrid sparrow populations from North Africa. Our study provides new data on the breeding biology and variation of mitochondrial DNA in three Algerian populations of house sparrows, Spanish sparrows, and phenotypical hybrids. In two field seasons, the two species occupied different breeding habitats: Spanish sparrows were only found in rural areas outside the cities and bred in open-cup nests built in large jujube bushes. In contrast, house sparrows bred only in the town centers and occupied nesting holes in walls of buildings. Phenotypical hybrids were always associated with house sparrow populations. House sparrows and phenotypical hybrids started breeding mid of March, and most pairs had three successive clutches, whereas Spanish sparrows started breeding almost one month later and had only two successive clutches. Mitochondrial introgression is strongly asymmetric because about 75% of the rural Spanish sparrow population carried house sparrow haplotypes. In contrast, populations of the Italian hybrid form, P. italiae, were genetically least diverse among all study populations and showed a near-fixation of house sparrow haplotypes that elsewhere were extremely rare or that were even unique for the Italian Peninsula. Such differences between mitochondrial gene pools of Italian and North African hybrid sparrow populations provide first evidence that different demographic histories have shaped the extant genetic diversity observed on both continents.

SUBMITTER: Ait Belkacem A

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4984497 | biostudies-literature | 2016 Aug

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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North African hybrid sparrows (Passer domesticus, P. hispaniolensis) back from oblivion - ecological segregation and asymmetric mitochondrial introgression between parental species.

Ait Belkacem Abdelkrim A Gast Oliver O Stuckas Heiko H Canal David D LoValvo Mario M Giacalone Gabriele G Päckert Martin M

Ecology and evolution 20160628 15

A stabilized hybrid form of the house sparrow (Passer domesticus) and the Spanish sparrow (P. hispaniolensis) is known as Passer italiae from the Italian Peninsula and a few Mediterranean islands. The growing attention for the Italian hybrid sparrow and increasing knowledge on its biology and genetic constitution greatly contrast the complete lack of knowledge of the long-known phenotypical hybrid sparrow populations from North Africa. Our study provides new data on the breeding biology and vari ...[more]

PMID: 27551376

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Project description:Under different environmental conditions, hybridization between the same species might result in different patterns of genetic admixture. Particularly, species pairs with large distribution ranges and long evolutionary history may have experienced several independent hybridization events over time in different zones of overlap. In birds, the diverse hybrid populations of the house sparrow (Passer domesticus) and the Spanish sparrow (Passer hispaniolensis) provide a striking example. Throughout their range of sympatry, these two species do not regularly interbreed; however, a stabilized hybrid form (Passer italiae) exists on the Italian Peninsula and on several Mediterranean islands. The spatial distribution pattern on the Eurasian continent strongly contrasts the situation in North Africa, where house sparrows and Spanish sparrows occur in close vicinity of phenotypically intermediate populations across a broad mosaic hybrid zone. In this study, we investigate patterns of divergence and admixture among the two parental species, stabilized and nonstabilized hybrid populations in Italy and Algeria based on a mitochondrial marker, a sex chromosomal marker, and 12 microsatellite loci. In Algeria, despite strong spatial and temporal separation of urban early-breeding house sparrows and hybrids and rural late-breeding Spanish sparrows, we found strong genetic admixture of mitochondrial and nuclear markers across all study populations and phenotypes. That pattern of admixture in the North African hybrid zone is strikingly different from i) the Iberian area of sympatry where we observed only weak asymmetrical introgression of Spanish sparrow nuclear alleles into local house sparrow populations and ii) the very homogenous Italian sparrow population where the mitogenome of one parent (P. domesticus) and the Z-chromosomal marker of the other parent (P. hispaniolensis) are fixed. The North African sparrow hybrids provide a further example of enhanced hybridization along with recent urbanization and anthropogenic land-use changes in a mosaic landscape.

Project description:BackgroundMaternal antibodies are believed to play an integral role in protecting immunologically immature wild-passerines from environmental antigens. This study comprehensively examines the early development of the adaptive immune system in an altricial-developing wild passerine species, the house sparrow (Passer domestics), by characterizing the half-life of maternal antibodies in nestling plasma, the onset of de novo synthesis of endogenous antibodies by nestlings, and the timing of immunological independence, where nestlings rely entirely on their own antibodies for immunologic protection.Methodology/principal findingsIn an aviary study we vaccinated females against a novel antigen that these birds would not otherwise encounter in their natural environment, and measured both antigen-specific and total antibody concentration in the plasma of females, yolks, and nestlings. We traced the transfer of maternal antibodies from females to nestlings through the yolk and measured catabolisation of maternal antigen-specific antibodies in nestlings during early development. By utilizing measurements of non-specific and specific antibody levels in nestling plasma we were able to calculate the half-life of maternal antibodies in nestling plasma and the time point at which nestling were capable of synthesizing antibodies themselves. Based on the short half-life of maternal antibodies, the rapid production of endogenous antibodies by nestlings and the relatively low transfer of maternal antibodies to nestlings, our findings suggest that altricial-developing sparrows achieve immunologic independence much earlier than precocial birds.Conclusions/significanceTo our knowledge, this is the first in depth analyses performed on the adaptive immune system of a wild-passerine species. Our results suggest that maternal antibodies may not confer the immunologic protection or immune priming previously proposed in other passerine studies. Further research needs to be conducted on other altricial passerines to determine if the results of our study are a species-specific phenomenon or if they apply to all altricial-developing birds.

Project description:Ecologists frequently use physiological tools to understand how organisms cope with their surroundings but rarely at macroecological scales. This study describes spatial variation in corticosterone (CORT) levels in feathers of invasive house sparrows (Passer domesticus) across their range in Mexico and evaluates CORT-climate relationships with a focus on temperature and precipitation. Samples were collected from 49 sites across Mexico. Feather CORT (CORTf) was measured using methanol-based extraction and radioimmunoassay. Relationships between CORTf and spatial and climate variables were examined using simple linear regressions. Ordination was used on climate data, CORTf was plotted against the resulting axes, and univariate regression trees were used to identify important predictors of CORTf. Universal kriging interpolation was used to illustrate spatial variation in CORTf across Mexico. Correlations with ordination axes showed that high CORTf was associated with low precipitation during the rainy season and low dry season temperatures. Specifically, CORTf was negatively related to May precipitation and January and July minimum temperatures, and positively related to April deuterium excess and June minimum temperatures. CORTf was higher in second-year birds compared to after-hatch years and after-second years. House sparrows had higher CORTf levels in the hot, dry, north-central region of Mexico, and CORTf was negatively related to temperature and precipitation. House sparrows molt primarily from August-September but climate conditions throughout the year were important predictors of CORTf, suggesting that conditions outside of molt can carry over to influence energetics during feather growth. These data suggest that dry conditions are challenging for house sparrows in Mexico, supporting previous work showing that precipitation is an important predictor of broad-scale CORT variation. This work highlights the utility of CORTf for evaluating the influence of physiology on current avian range limits; furthermore, these data may allow us to predict future changes in species distributions.

Dataset Information

North African hybrid sparrows (Passer domesticus, P. hispaniolensis) back from oblivion - ecological segregation and asymmetric mitochondrial introgression between parental species.

Publications

North African hybrid sparrows (Passer domesticus, P. hispaniolensis) back from oblivion - ecological segregation and asymmetric mitochondrial introgression between parental species.

Similar Datasets

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