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Conservation genomics reveals low connectivity among populations of threatened roseate terns (Sterna dougallii) in the Atlantic Basin

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Abstract

While the effects of barriers to dispersal such as population declines, habitat fragmentation, and geographic distance have been well-documented in terrestrial wildlife, factors impeding the dispersal of highly vagile taxa such as seabirds are less well understood. The roseate tern (Sterna dougallii) is a globally distributed seabird species, but populations tend to be both fragmented and small, and the species is declining across most of its range. We evaluated structuring of roseate tern populations in the Northwestern Atlantic, the Caribbean, and the Azores using both microsatellite markers and single-nucleotide polymorphisms generated through targeted sequencing of Ultra-conserved Elements. For both marker types, we found significant genetic differentiation among all 3 populations and evidence for moderate contemporary unidirectional gene flow from the Caribbean to the Azores, but not between other populations. Within the Caribbean population, we found high rates of unidirectional migration from the Virgin Islands to Florida, potentially indicative of movement from source population to sink or an artifact of dispersal among other unsampled populations in the Caribbean region. These observations have significance for species persistence in the Atlantic, as our results indicate that loss of genetic diversity within populations is unlikely to be buffered by inflow of new alleles from other breeding populations.

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Data availability

Raw sequence data were deposited in the NCBI Sequence Read Archive (PRJNA847596). Genetic data for this paper are also available through USGS ScienceBase at https://doi.org/10.5066/P9MTXDCH (Byerly et al. 2022). Related metadata, including individual sample identifiers with sampling region and corresponding SNP and microsatellite loci, as well as all code used to generate data, can be found at https://github.com/pabyerly/RoseateTern_PopulationGenetics.

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Acknowledgements

Logistical support was provided by the U.S. Virgin Islands Division of Fish and Wildlife, the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission, and the National Parks Service. We thank P. Szczys, C. Mostello, R. Zambrano, N. Warraich, C. Pavlik, D. Nellis, K. Kalasz, and V. Rodrigues Costa Neves for assisting with sampling and/or providing samples. We also thank Dr. Szczys and J. Dayton for their invaluable input for the microsatellite analysis and S. Hauser and N. Woodman for providing comments on the manuscript. Any use of trade, product, or firm names is for descriptive purposes only and does not imply endorsement by the U.S. Government.

Funding

This material is based upon work supported by the National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship Program under Grant No. 1650114. Additional funding was provided by a Smithsonian short-term visitor award, the Ecosystems Mission Area of the U.S. Geological Survey, the David S. Lee Fund for the Conservation of Caribbean Birds, and United States Virgin Islands Division of Fish & Wildlife Cays Restoration & Research Grant VI-W-F17AF01314. Samples were collected and/or imported under appropriate United States Fish and Wildlife Service, United States Department of Agriculture, and region-specific permits. All protocols were approved by the University of Louisiana at Lafayette Institutional Animal Care and Use Committee.

Author information

Author notes

  1. Paige A. Byerly

    Present address: Center for Conservation Genomics, Smithsonian’s National Zoo and Conservation Biology Institute, Washington, DC, USA

Authors and Affiliations

  1. University of Louisiana at Lafayette, Lafayette, LA, USA

    Paige A. Byerly & Paul L. Leberg

  2. Eastern Ecological Science Center, U.S. Geological Survey, Laurel, MD, USA

    R. Terry Chesser

  3. National Museum of Natural History, Washington, DC, USA

    R. Terry Chesser & Natalia A. S. Przelomska

  4. Smithsonian’s National Zoo and Conservation Biology Institute, Washington, DC, USA

    Paige A. Byerly, Robert C. Fleischer, Nancy McInerney & Natalia A. S. Przelomska

  5. Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, Richmond, UK

    Natalia A. S. Przelomska

Authors
  1. Paige A. Byerly
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  2. R. Terry Chesser
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  3. Robert C. Fleischer
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  4. Nancy McInerney
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  5. Natalia A. S. Przelomska
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  6. Paul L. Leberg
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Contributions

PAB conceived and designed the study, collected samples, conducted laboratory work and data analysis, interpreted the data, and wrote the paper. RTC and RCF participated in study design, interpreting the data, and drafting the manuscript. NM participated in laboratory work. NASP participated in study design and data analysis. PLL participated in conceiving and designing the study, data analysis, interpretation of the data, and drafting the manuscript. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Paige A. Byerly.

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Byerly, P.A., Chesser, R.T., Fleischer, R.C. et al. Conservation genomics reveals low connectivity among populations of threatened roseate terns (Sterna dougallii) in the Atlantic Basin. Conserv Genet 24, 331–345 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10592-023-01505-6

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