BRTC

Writer: Steve Byrns, 325-653-4576, s-byrns@tamu.edu

Contact: Dr. Gary Voelker, 979-845-5288, gvoelker@tamu.edu

COLLEGE STATION – A Texas A&M University team has discovered three never before documented bird species, and there could well be more, the team’s leader said.

Dr. Gary Voelker, professor and curator of birds in the department of wildlife and fisheries sciences at Texas A&M University, College Station, headed the recent discovery of a trio of similar African birds living in close proximity, but that are different species which share no common genes.

Voelker was lead author on an article published recently in the scientific journal Systematics and Biodiversity discussing that discovery.

Dr. Gary Voelker shows museum specimens of newly documented bird species. (Texas A&M AgriLife photo by Kathleen Phillips)

“The discovery of these three new species is a good example of the amount of potentially hidden diversity living in Afrotropical forests,” Voelker said. “Our evidence runs directly counter to the belief of earlier research that said Afrotropical forests are static places where little evolutionary diversification has occurred.

“The areas were referred to as ‘museums’ of diversity, meaning they believed because many of the birds look similar across their ranges, then they probably were the same species. That’s a point we are finding not to be true.”

The point of most interest, Voelker said, is that two of the three birds, which all look pretty much alike at first glance, live in close proximity to one another in an area that lacks significant geographic barriers typically associated with the forming of new species. Despite this, the birds don’t share genetic makeup and their appearance is indeed somewhat distinct when closely analyzed.

Voelker described the three new species as forest robins in the genus Stiphrornis; two from West Africa and one from the Congo Basin.

“Each of the three represents a distinct lineage based on our genetic analysis,” he said. “The three are further distinguished from already documented birds in the genus by clear differences in appearance such as wing and tail length and subtle differences in their plumage; one species has a distinctive song as well.”

Voelker said because many of the birds within the species look a lot alike, there’s hasn’t been much research done historically to find if they are in fact, different species. This lack of research also means there is much less well-preserved DNA available for genetic analysis and those specimens that are available are rather old.

However, his team’s recent collecting work in Africa has enabled them to add to the limited genetic material that several other museums have, which in turn, has allowed them to address the species diversification question.

“This overall lack of collecting bird specimens in Afrotropical lowland forests is likely inhibiting the discovery of any number of new species, though several apart from the three we studied have been described in recent years,” he said. “This suggests that a lack of sampling in the region, rather than a lack of obvious variation in the birds, is a key contributor to fully documenting avian biodiversity in lowland forests.”

Through genetic analyses and careful assessment of variation in plumage and appearance that is facilitated by museum specimens, the team was able to determine the three lineages tested represented new species.

They are named Stiphrornis dahomeyensis or the Dahomey Forest Robin found in Benin and the central region of Ghana, the Stiphrornis inexpectatus or Ghana Forest Robin collected from Brong-Ahafo and Central Regions of Ghana, and the Stiphrornis rudderi or Rudder’s Forest Robin discovered along the Congo River near Kisangani in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

Voelker, who named all three species, said Rudder’s Forest Robin was named for U.S. Army Major General Earl Rudder, who served as Texas A&M University’s 16th president and third president of the Texas A&M University System.

“I felt naming this special bird for Major General Rudder was a great way to acknowledge the role of Texas A&M University in supporting its faculty and student research,” he said.

When asked how this study benefits the public, Voelker said:

“It’s important to document that there is variation in a group like Stiphrornis, and others that tend to lack obvious variation in a natural setting,” he said. “Doing so gives conservation managers more data to reference when seeking to define important areas of concern. This may ensure such areas are defined to save the highest possible amount of biodiversity, which helps to sustain all life forms.”

An abstract of the journal article, “Three new species of Stiphrornis (Aves: Muscicapidae) from the Afro-tropics, with a molecular phylogenetic assessment of the genus,” is available along with a list of co-authors at http://bit.ly/2dPkbvm . View museum specimens of two of the birds at http://bit.ly/2eKbs21

By Kathy Wythe

Photo courtesy of Dr. Wade Ryberg.

While many people try to avoid snakes, a group of researchers are doing everything they can to find snakes, specifically the rare Louisiana pine snake.

The nonvenomous, 6-foot-long snake lives in gopher burrows, coming out only to go from one burrow to another or to mate. Its only habitat is the longleaf pine savannahs in eastern Texas and western Louisiana. But today, that habitat is almost gone, said Dr. Toby Hibbitts, a researcher at the Texas A&M Institute of Renewable Natural Resources (IRNR) and curator of amphibians and reptiles at the Biodiversity Research and Teaching Collections at Texas A&M.

Hibbitts is working with Dr. Wade Ryberg, another IRNR research scientist, and colleagues from the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) Forest Service on the project.

“With the loss of habitat, populations are crashing in Texas and Louisiana,” Hibbitts said.

The snake’s numbers have never been that abundant, Hibbitts said. In fact, the snake was undiscovered until the 1920s.

“Most of the longleaf pine forest was cut beginning around the turn of the century, so the snake’s habitat was heavily affected before we even knew it existed,” he said. “Until the 1950s, fewer than 20 specimens were known.”

Hibbitts said after searching for and collecting the elusive snake over the last 20 years, researchers have only identified 250 specimens in Texas and Louisiana. Since 2006, just six Louisiana pine snakes have been found in Texas, with the last one found in 2008.

“So it has always been rare or at least really hard to find,” he said.

Because of its rarity, the snake has been under consideration for listing under the Endangered Species Act (ESA) by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) for years. The federal agency must make a decision on the listing by 2017.

With funding from the Texas Comptroller of Public Accounts, Hibbitts, Ryberg and scientists from the forest service are studying the snake’s population, distribution and habitat on private land in Texas.

“The comptroller’s office wants to have the best information possible for the FWS to make a listing decision, so that is why it is funding this current research project,” Ryberg said.

The team designed a new model using information from IRNR’s Texas Land Trends database to identify potential habitat for the snake. In the past, Hibbitts said, models were based on soils because the snake prefers specific sandy soils. Their research model added older pine forests that haven’t been harvested recently as a variable.

“We looked at a series of aerial photos of a pine stand, and if it had ever been cut over the last 30 years, we excluded it as habitat,” he said. “We set up a map with blocks of forest that were older than 35 years, and that is what we considered potential habitat.”

They also narrowed the potential habitat by selecting larger continuous forested areas.

Once these potential habitat areas were determined, they began the second step of the project: determining the snake’s population on the private lands.

Beginning in March, the team set out 26 snake arrays on the identified areas within the private forests. The arrays consist of drift fences that funnel the snakes into certain areas and camera traps that take photos every 30 seconds for about 14 hours a day, producing about 30,000 images per month from each camera. The camera traps will stay in place until October.

If the camera captures an image of a snake, the researchers will go back to the site with a box trap to try to capture the snake, Hibbitts said.

If any snakes are captured, the researchers, with approval from the landowner, hope to give the snakes to one of several zoos that run a captive breeding program for the species.

Ryberg said zoos in Memphis, New Orleans, Lufkin and Fort Worth are among the zoos that operate the captive breeding program for the Louisiana pine snake. There are currently about 100 Louisiana pine snakes in zoos.

Every snake that has been found in Texas since 2006 has been captured and brought into one of the zoos involved in the captive breeding program, Hibbitts said. For four years, at one site, the captive breeding program has released about 40 juvenile pine snakes to reestablish the population and to look at efficacy of reintroduction.

“However, there are currently only three females in captivity in Texas, at the Ellen Trout Zoo in Lufkin,” Ryberg said.

The researchers have made recommendations for establishing a captive breeding and release program in Texas for Louisiana pine snakes.

Hibbitts said their recommendation is that the Texas snakes will need to be bred with Louisiana snakes to get a large enough population of captive snakes from Texas stock to start a reintroduction program in Texas habitats.

One question the project aims to answer is, if no snakes are found on these lands, does Texas even have any more Louisiana pine snakes?

“The answer is there probably are some snakes in USDA Forest Service property and there are places they could be reintroduced that are being maintained for longleaf pine forest and being managed for good habitat,” Hibbitts said.

Once the team completes its research on private lands in East Texas, it can estimate the amount of occupied habitat, Hibbitts said.

“Then, if the snake is listed under the ESA, landowners of private lands in Texas considered to be in unoccupied habitat will not be required by ESA regulations to modify any management practices for their land.”

Originally appeared: http://twri.tamu.edu/publications/conservation-matters/2016/july/scientists-search-for-rare-snake-in-east-texas-longleaf-pine-forests/

TWRI and the Texas A&M Institute of Renewable Natural Resources are working together to foster and communicate research and educational outreach programs focused on water and natural resources science and management issues in Texas and beyond.