2024 Taxonomic Changes - Costa Rica Specific Changes (1 Viewer)

[TicoTyler]

As a corollary to the Clement's 2024 changes thread here on the forum, I wrote up a short analyses on my personal blog with the changes that specifically impact Costa Rica. The summary is that 5 species' names will change and Costa Rica will gain two additional species with the splits of Crested Bobwhite and Brown Booby as now multiple species of each will be present. You can read a bit more in-depth about it here.

 

[Maffong]

Nice write-up. Just one small comment.
You write that Brown Boobies in the Pacific will become Cocos Boobies and those in the Caribbean stay as Brown Booby. The way I understand it, there's also a large portion of birds in the Pacific that remain as Brown Boobies and only a minority of birds that occur simpatrically are Cocos Boobies.
I had a single bird on an islet off Uvita that was phenotypically a Cocos among ca. 20 Browns.

 

[TicoTyler]

Nice write-up. Just one small comment.
You write that Brown Boobies in the Pacific will become Cocos Boobies and those in the Caribbean stay as Brown Booby. The way I understand it, there's also a large portion of birds in the Pacific that remain as Brown Boobies and only a minority of birds that occur simpatrically are Cocos Boobies.
I had a single bird on an islet off Uvita that was phenotypically a Cocos among ca. 20 Browns.

There will be Brown Boobies in the Pacific, but not Costa Rican Pacific as I understand it. The new species Sula brewsteri will be made up of S. l. brewsteri and S. l. etesiaca. Meanwhile S. l. plotus of the Western and Central Pacific will still be Brown Booby, but it doesn't range far enough east to be spotted in Costa Rica. An excerpt from the proposal:

Genetic population structure of Brown Boobies largely matches patterns of morphological variation (Steeves et al. 2003, Morris-Pocock et al. 2010, 2011). Mitochondrial haplotypes were not shared between the eastern and central Pacific or between the eastern Pacific and Caribbean (Steeves et al. 2003), and colonies grouped into four major, genetically differentiated populations; Caribbean, central Atlantic, Indo-central Pacific, and eastern Pacific (Morris-Pocock et al. 2011). The eastern Pacific population was found to be the most different genetically and was estimated to have diverged from all other populations approximately one million years ago (Morris-Pocock et al. 2011). These populations have diverged because of a combination of physical barriers (the Isthmus of Panama and the Eastern Pacific Basin) and a behavioral tendency in the Brown Booby to forage closer to shore than other booby species (Steeves et al. 2003).

So of those four populations, they are only splitting one off at this time, the eastern Pacific soon to be Cocos Booby. Meanwhile the Indo-central Pacific population will be Brown Booby still but doesn't come as far east as Costa Rica (although a vagrant could always show up!)

 

[Maffong]

Oh, I didn't realize they included etesiaca in Cocos Booby!

 

[TicoTyler]

Article updated to include changes to taxonomy as well.