MSGID: 1:317/3 63fed4e4   
   PID: hpt/lnx 1.9.0-cur 2019-01-08   
   TID: hpt/lnx 1.9.0-cur 2019-01-08   
    Pink + pink  gold: hybrid hummingbird's feathers don't match its   
   parents    
      
     Date:   
         February 28, 2023   
     Source:   
         Field Museum   
     Summary:   
         Scientists thought a gold-throated hummingbird was a new   
         species. DNA revealed that it's a hybrid of two different species,   
         each with pink throats. The discovery sheds light on how birds   
         produce feather colors and how hummingbirds evolved their dazzling   
         hues.   
      
      
         Facebook Twitter Pinterest LinkedIN Email   
   FULL STORY   
   ==========================================================================   
   The Pink-throated Brilliant hummingbird, Heliodoxa gularis, has,   
   unsurprisingly, a brilliant pink throat. So does its cousin, the   
   Rufous-webbed Brilliant hummingbird, Heliodoxa branickii. When scientists   
   found a Heliodoxa hummingbird with a glittering gold throat, they thought   
   they might have found a new species. DNA revealed a different story:   
   the gold-throated bird was a never-before-documented hybrid of the two   
   pink-throated species.   
      
      
   ==========================================================================   
   John Bates, the senior author of a new study in the journal Royal Society   
   Open Science reporting on the hybrid, first encountered the unusual bird   
   while doing fieldwork in Peru's Cordillera Azul National Park, which   
   protects an outer ridge on the eastern slopes of Andes mountains. Since   
   the area is isolated, it would make sense for a genetically distinct   
   population to emerge there. "I looked at the bird and said to myself,   
   'This thing doesn't look like anything else.' My first thought was, it was   
   a new species," says Bates, a curator of birds at Chicago's Field Museum.   
      
   When Bates and colleagues gathered more data about the specimen in   
   the Field Museum's Pritzker DNA Lab, however, the results surprised   
   everyone. "We thought it would be genetically distinct, but it matched   
   Heliodoxa branickiiin some markers, one of the pink-throated hummingbirds   
   from that general area of Peru," says Bates. If it was H. branickii,   
   it didn't make sense for the bird to have gold throat feathers; in the   
   hummingbird family, it's rare for members of the same species to have   
   dramatically different throat colors.   
      
   The initial run of DNA sequencing looked at mitochondrial DNA,   
   a type of genetic material that only gets passed down through the   
   mother. That mitochondrial DNA gave a clear result matching H. branickii;   
   the researchers then analyzed the bird's nuclear DNA, which includes   
   contributions from both parents. This time, the DNA showed similarities to   
   both H. branickii and its cousin, H. gularis. It wasn't half branickiiand   
   half gularis, though -- one of its ancestors must have been half-and-half,   
   and then later generations mated with morebranickii birds.   
      
   The question remained how two pink-throated bird species could produce a   
   non- pink-throated hybrid. The study's first author, Field Museum senior   
   research scientist Chad Eliason, says the answer lies in the complex   
   ways in which iridescent feather colors are determined.   
      
   "It's a little like cooking: if you mix salt and water, you kind of know   
   what you're gonna get, but mixing two complex recipes together might give   
   more unpredictable results," says Eliason. "This hybrid is a mix of two   
   complex recipes for a feather from its two parent species."  Feathers get   
   their base color from pigment, like melanin (black) and carotidnoids   
   (red and yellow). But the structure of feathers' cells and the way light   
   bounces off them can also produce something called structural color.   
      
   Color-shifting iridescence is a result of structural color.   
      
   The researchers used an electron microscope to examine the throat feather   
   structure on a subcellular level, and an analytical technique called   
   spectroscopy to measure how light bounces off the feathers to produce   
   different colors. They found subtle differences in the origin of the   
   parents' colors, which explain why their hybrid offspring produced a   
   totally different color.   
      
   "There's more than one way to make magenta with iridescence," says   
   Eliason.   
      
   "The parent species each have their own way of making magenta, which is,   
   I think, why you can have this nonlinear or surprising outcome when   
   you mix together those two recipes for producing a feather color."   
   While this study helps explain the strange coloration of one unusual   
   bird, the researchers say that it opens the door to more questions   
   about hybridization.   
      
   Separate species are generally defined as lineages that are genetically   
   distinct and don't interbreed with each other; hybrids break that rule.   
      
   Sometimes hybrids are weird one-offs or are sterile, like mules; in   
   other cases, hybrids can form new species. It's not clear how common   
   hummingbird hybrids like the one in this study are, but the researchers   
   speculate that hybrids like this one might contribute to the diversity   
   of structural colors found across the hummingbird family tree.   
      
   "Based on the speed of color evolution seen in hummingbirds, we calculated   
   it would take 6-10 million years for this drastic pink-gold color shift   
   to evolve in a single species," says Eliason.   
      
   Co-author Mark Hauber at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign   
   adds that "this study gives us clues about the nanostructural basis of   
   evolutionary shifts in color."  This study was contributed to by Bates's   
   and Eliason's Field Museum colleagues Jacob Cooper (now at the University   
   of Kansas), Shannon Hackett, Erica Zahnle, Dylan Maddox, and Taylor Hains,   
   as well as Tatiana Paquen~o Saco (Peruvian Ministry of Natural Resources)   
   and Mark Hauber (University of Illinois, Urbana- Champaign).   
      
       * RELATED_TOPICS   
             o Plants_&_Animals   
                   # New_Species # Evolutionary_Biology # Mating_and_Breeding   
                   # Frogs_and_Reptiles   
             o Earth_&_Climate   
                   # Rainforests # Exotic_Species # Environmental_Awareness   
                   # Ecology   
       * RELATED_TERMS   
             o Hummingbird o Hybrid o Bird o Owl o DNA_microarray o Dolphin   
             o Flamingo o Endangered_species   
      
   ==========================================================================   
   Story Source: Materials provided by Field_Museum. Note: Content may be   
   edited for style and length.   
      
      
   ==========================================================================   
   Related Multimedia:   
       * The_gold-throated_hybrid_with_its_parent_species_H._branickii_and_H.   
      
         gularis   
   ==========================================================================   
   Journal Reference:   
      1. Chad M. Eliason, Jacob C. Cooper, Shannon J. Hackett, Erica Zahnle,   
         Tatiana Z. Pequen~o Saco, Joseph Dylan Maddox, Taylor Hains, Mark E.   
      
         Hauber, John M. Bates. Interspecific hybridization explains   
         rapid gorget colour divergence in Heliodoxa hummingbirds (Aves:   
         Trochilidae). Royal Society Open Science, 2023; 10 (3) DOI:   
         10.1098/rsos.221603   
   ==========================================================================   
      
   Link to news story:   
   https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2023/02/230228205246.htm   
      
   --- up 1 year, 1 day, 10 hours, 50 minutes   
    * Origin: -=> Castle Rock BBS <=- Now Husky HPT Powered! (1:317/3)   
   SEEN-BY: 15/0 106/201 114/705 123/120 153/7715 226/30 227/114 229/111   
   SEEN-BY: 229/112 113 307 317 400 426 428 470 664 700 292/854 298/25   
   SEEN-BY: 305/3 317/3 320/219 396/45   
   PATH: 317/3 229/426