Skylark (1 Viewer)

Alex Lees and Alan Ball. Shades of grey: ‘eastern’ Skylarks and extralimital subspecies identification. British Birds 104 • November 2011 • 660–666.
PDF

Lees & Ball mention the split of Alauda [arvensis] pekinensis (probably including sspp kiborti, intermedia, lonnbergi, japonica) suggested by Zink et al 2008.

Perhaps surprisingly, BLI and China Bird Report still recognise A [a] japonica Japanese Skylark (monotypic), following Sibley & Monroe 1990/1993 (and MacKinnon & Phillipps 2000).

Birds Korea also recognises A [a] japonica, but including ssp intermedia:

• Moores & Kim 2009. The Birds Korea Checklist: 2009. Birds Korea.
• Moores 2002/2003. Identification of Japanese Lark. Birds Korea.

Japanese Skylark

Background...

• As mentioned earlier, BirdLife recognises Japanese Skylark Alauda japonica (monotypic), restricted to Japan, S Kurils and S Sakhalin.
  
  
• But Birds Korea tentatively includes mainland subspecies intermedia.
  
  
• Cornell (Clements) identifies two subspecies groups within A arvensis: European (arvensis, scotica, guillelmi, sierrae, harterti, cantarella, armenica); and Asian (dulcivox, kiborti, intermedia, pekinensis, lonnbergi, japonica).
  
  
• Zink et al 2008 identifies deeply divergent western and eastern clades representing "phylogenetic, and possibly biological, species" - but with a slightly different division: A arvensis 'Skylark' (including at least dulcivox, and presumably all Western Palearctic subspecies); and A pekinensis 'Pekin Skylark' (including at least kiborti, intermedia, lonnbergi). Unfortunately, japonica wasn't sampled.
  
  
• [See Donald 2004 (HBW 9) for subspecies ranges.]

Following on from a recent discussion on kantori, Nial Moores has posted an interesting summary of the rationale for the treatment adopted by Birds Korea: Far Eastern / Japanese Larks: a Temporary Taxonomic Treatment!

PS. China Bird Report also recognises A japonica - presumably reflecting MacKinnon & Phillipps 2000, which claims that A japonica (monotypic) is occasional on passage or wintering along S and E coasts of China, including Hong Kong.

Cox1 data in attachment (data mainly from BOLD, plus a few additional sequences from GenBank).
Three clusters in Alauda:

• western Alauda arvensis, with samples from UK, Norway, Iran, and Sverlovsk in the Russian Urals, plus introduced birds from New-Zealand and Hawaii;
• eastern Alauda arvensis, with samples from Korea, Kamchatka, Mongolia, Irkutsk, and one bird from Sakhalin (this is equivalent to Zink's Alauda pekinensis); and
• a third cluster with Alauda arvensis samples from Japan and (extreme south) Sakhalin (5), plus one Alauda gulgula from China (no idea where; this sequence is in GenBank but not in BOLD) (this has no equivalent in Zink's data).

It would obviously be preferable to have more gulgula samples but, as it stands, the data seems consistent with japonica belonging in A. gulgula.
Interestingliy, "A. pekinensis" would appear to be sister to gulgula/japonica, not to the western A. arvensis.

Very interesting, Laurent.

Do you know if there's any record of the subspecific identity of the samples from S Korea (potentially intermedia, pekinensis or lonnbergi)?

Richard Klim said:

Do you know if there's any record of the subspecific identity of the samples from S Korea (potentially intermedia, pekinensis or lonnbergi)?

Click to expand...

'Afraid no, Richard.
All I know is what is given the the Public Data Portal of BOLD, which for these two is really not much:

• KBBI192-07
• KBBI254-07

There's not even a date, and long/lat coordinates are given only for one of the sequences. No voucher info either, and of course no picture.

Molecular phylogeny based on mitochondrial DNA sequences of Eurasian and Oriental Skylarks

S. Shiraki, S. Surmach, K. Ueda & L. L. Severinghaus

There are three subspecies of Eurasian Skylark Alauda arvensis in Japan, including A. a. japonica which breeds almost throughout Japan and A. a. pekinensis and lonnbergi which are both winter visitors (The Ornithological Society of Japan 2012). Meanwhile, Sibley & Monroe (1990) categorized the skylark breeding in Japan as a full species A. japonica. In addition, Vaurie (1959) stated the possibility that A. japonica was a race of the Oriental Skylark A. gulgula on the basis of morphological comparisons. Against this background, a re-evaluation of the taxonomic status of the skylark breeding in Japan is required. Molecular phylogenetic analyses based on mitochondrial DNA sequences of skylarks have been carried out in this study. Blood, feather, and tissue samples of skylarks were collected from the breeding populations in various parts of Japan and in Sakhalin and Primorye of Far East Russia. Some tissue samples from A. gulgula in Taiwan were also collected but it was not known whether they belonged to the breeding population. We extracted DNAs from these samples and determined the base sequences for both ND2 (1041bp) and COI (649bp) genes within mitochondrial DNA. The homologous sequences of Alauda larks from INDC were also used in our analysis. From the results of the analyses so far, three distinct clades with high bootstrap support were identified on the phylogenetic trees based on the neighbor-joining method with both sequence data of ND2 and COI genes. Each clade consisted of individuals mostly from Japan, from eastern part of Russia, and from western Eurasia region, respectively. Large (4.6-8.3%) pairwise genetic distances (K2P) between clades were shown for all pairs with both genes. On the other hand, A. gulgula from both Taiwan and China were clustered into the same clade as the skylarks breeding in Japan, indicating that the Japanese species is a closer relative of A. gulgula than A. arvensis.

26th International Ornithological Congress 2014, Tokyo