Results 1 to 14 of 14

Thread: WOW.....mallards, blacks, domestics etc....

  1. #1
    Join Date
    Oct 2001
    Location
    Hampton Co., SC
    Posts
    10,122

    Default WOW.....mallards, blacks, domestics etc....

    https://www.ducks.org/conservation/w...lards?poe=MJ20

    By Philip Lavretsky, Ph.D.

    While it might be hard to imagine today, mallards were once rarely encountered throughout much of the Atlantic Flyway. That began to change during the 20th century, as the expansion of agriculture in eastern Canada opened the Boreal forest, creating ideal habitat for pioneering mallards from the west. To the south, in the eastern United States, government agencies and private citizens worked for decades to establish a huntable mallard population through the large-scale release of game-farm birds. Mallard numbers grew exponentially in the east, and by the 1960s, the greenhead had become the most abundant duck in the Atlantic Flyway.

    Unfortunately, the growth of eastern mallard populations coincided with comparable decreases in the abundance of American black ducks, which declined by more than 50 percent between the 1950s and 1980s. This decline may have resulted from intense competition with mallards for habitat, food resources, and mates. While black duck numbers appear to have stabilized in recent decades, concerns have remained about the future of the species, especially due to persistently high rates of hybridization with mallards.

    During the past decade, my colleagues and I conducted research using the latest genetic techniques to understand the extent to which hybridization has affected the genetic integrity of black ducks and mallards in eastern North America. We published our work in the scientific journal Ecology and Evolution in 2019. Using hundreds of samples at the landscape level, coupled with thousands of genetic markers, we discovered a hybridization rate of 25 percent among birds identified as black ducks, meaning roughly a quarter of our samples had mallard DNA. Much to our surprise, however, the remaining 75 percent were pure black ducks. How could that be possible? Our research suggests that mallard−black duck hybrids rarely breed with black ducks, resulting in little gene flow back into the parental black duck population. That is great news for this iconic species, which will likely continue to grace our skies as long as sufficient habitat remains on the landscape.

    Perhaps even more interesting, however, were the two unique genetic signatures we found in our wild-mallard sample set. Specifically, whereas pure black ducks consisted of a single genetic stock across their range, mallards showed very distinct genetic differences moving from east to west. Mallards west of the Mississippi all had a distinct "western" genetic signature, while those farther east showed varying degrees of intermixing with birds sharing a novel "non-western" genetic signature. That was the first real clue that something very strange was occurring among eastern mallards.


    Although mallards and black ducks frequently interbreed, their hybrid offspring (above) rarely mate with black ducks.

    Photo © MICHAELFURTMAN.COM

    In addition to questions about the genetic history of mallards and black ducks, we set out to test the hypothesis that the secondary source of mallard DNA present in North America was the result of game-farm mallard stocking practices in the eastern United States. My coauthors, Dr. Helen James, research zoologist and curator of birds at the National Museum of Natural History, and Dr. Robert Fleischer, head of the Smithsonian Conservation Biology Institute Center for Conservation Genomics, and I analyzed DNA samples from historical (1860−1915) museum specimens that were collected before widespread game-farm mallard releases began. These findings were published in the scientific journal Molecular Ecology in 2020. In short, comparing the DNA makeup of today's mallard populations to the museum specimens confirmed that western mallards remain genetically identical to those that lived on this continent 150 years ago, while the genetics of eastern mallards are much different.

    When we analyzed the DNA of present-day game-farm mallards from New Jersey and Kentucky, we determined that these birds were of the same genetic stock, and that the source was likely of Eurasian and not North American descent. Our analysis confirmed historical accounts that many game-farm mallards were imported from abroad when attempts to breed wild North American mallards and black ducks failed. These nonnative birds have been propagated—and released into the wild in large numbers—in the eastern United States over the last century.

    It's important to note that game-farm mallards should not be confused with "park ducks," such as Khaki Campbells, which are even more remotely related to wild mallards than game-farm birds. We found no evidence of these birds' DNA in the mallard samples analyzed in our study.

    But Eurasian game-farm mallards have been subject to human domestication for hundreds to thousands of generations. Strictly looking at the DNA, game-farm mallards have half the genetic diversity of their wild counterparts. In fact, they are 10 times more distantly related to our native western mallards than are black ducks, Mexican ducks, and mottled ducks. Moreover, game-farm mallards weigh 300–400 grams (approximately 10−14 ounces) less than wild birds on average. Their bills also have structural differences likely derived from a diet of domestic grains. Other differences are apparent in their breeding behavior. Males are known to be overly aggressive, while females have a prolonged breeding period, in which they often produce excessive numbers of eggs and show poor nest vigilance compared to wild mallards. These traits make game-farm mallards easier to propagate in domestic settings but are clearly not beneficial in the wild. Together, these differences demonstrate that game-farm mallards only appear to be "wild" on the outside, when they are in fact a genetically modified species.

    Nevertheless, our research confirmed that game-farm mallards are capable of not only surviving but also successfully breeding in the wild. In fact, 92 percent of the mallards that we analyzed in the Atlantic Flyway had a substantial amount of game-farm DNA. Our work also revealed that unlike wild mallards, black ducks resist the temptation to interbreed with game-farm birds. In general, these results were in stark contrast to what we expected when we began our research. Instead of the black duck being faced with genetic extinction, it is the native North American mallard that may be threatened by hybridization with game-farm birds of Eurasian domestic descent.

    Dr. Philip Lavretsky is an assistant professor of biological science at the University of Texas at El Paso.

    FULL TEXT To read the research papers by Dr. Phil Lavretsky and his coauthors that were cited in this article, visit the DU website at ducks.org/duckdna.


    Dr. Philip Lavretsky and his colleagues used the latest genetic techniques to analyze the DNA of American black ducks and mallards.

    Photo © Courtesy: Phil Lavretsky, PhD.

    ARE WILD MALLARD POPULATIONS AT RISK?
    Research published in the scientific journals Ecology and Evolution (2019) and Molecular Ecology (2020) revealed that North America now has two mallard populations: a large wild population of western mallards and a second, eastern population composed of game-farm mallards and hybrids with varying proportions of wild and domestic DNA. Could maladaptive qualities derived from game-farm birds be the cause of declining mallard populations in the Atlantic Flyway? That's an intriguing question, and research is currently under way to further study this hypothesis.

    But hybridization between wild and game-farm mallards isn't confined to the Atlantic Flyway. Almost half the birds sampled from the Mississippi Flyway carried domestic mallard DNA, and that trend is increasing. Game-farm genetics are now trickling into the midcontinent mallard population that largely breeds in the Prairie Pothole Region. The sheer number of prairie-breeding mallards may be able to "absorb" the potentially negative effects of hybridization with mallards with domestic DNA, but more research is clearly needed to determine the possible threats game-farm birds pose to wild mallard populations.
    \"I never saw a wild thing feel sorry for itself. A small bird will drop dead frozen from a bough without ever having felt sorry for itself.\" <br />D.H. LAWRENCE

  2. #2
    Join Date
    Aug 2009
    Location
    Probation
    Posts
    10,071

    Default

    Great post- thanks
    Quote Originally Posted by BOG View Post
    Tip:
    Although it is natural for you and seems to be out of your hands, try to suppress your natural inclination towards dumbassedness and do some research of your own.I wish you luck.
    Tekton Game Calls
    http://tektongamecalls.com

  3. #3
    Join Date
    Sep 2012
    Posts
    2,191

    Default

    Interesting stuff Cali.

  4. #4
    Join Date
    Jan 2003
    Location
    SC
    Posts
    24,410

    Default

    Interesting.

    Sent from my moto z3 using Tapatalk

  5. #5
    Join Date
    Jan 2015
    Location
    Charleston
    Posts
    2,397

    Default

    Unfortunate, but very interesting.


    Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

  6. #6
    Join Date
    Jul 2003
    Location
    Moncks Corner
    Posts
    15,556

    Default

    Even black ducks with their pea sized brains know enough to not mess with tamies...
    Ephesians 2 : 8-9



    Charles Barkley: Nobody doesn't like meat.

  7. #7
    Join Date
    Feb 2018
    Posts
    536

    Default

    So those are the exotic Eurasian Mallards raising at my place....all this time I thought it was just an ol’ POS Carolina Chicken Mallard...cool article Scott.
    Last edited by JCT; 05-06-2020 at 05:38 AM.

  8. #8
    Join Date
    Mar 2002
    Location
    Florence
    Posts
    9,025

    Default

    I suggest y'all take up crow hunting.
    Either write things worth reading, or do things worth writing.

  9. #9
    Join Date
    Dec 2005
    Location
    Ballard's Landing
    Posts
    15,424

    Default

    A very well known mallard farmer has claimed this for a long time.
    According to him, DU had a hand in releasing mallards in the northeast in the 1940s.
    Be proactive about improving public waterfowl habitat in South Carolina. It's not going to happen by itself, and our help is needed. We have the potential to winter thousands of waterfowl on public grounds if we fight for it.

  10. #10
    Join Date
    Sep 2001
    Location
    Wateree, South Carolina
    Posts
    48,808

    Default

    Quote Originally Posted by BOGSTER View Post
    According to him, DU had a hand in releasing mallards in the northeast in the 1940s.
    That should come as no surprise. We talked about it extensively on here 20 years ago, along with the feds, states, and many private entities as well. Including several in SC long before it became a money making operation...

  11. #11
    Join Date
    Sep 2012
    Posts
    2,191

    Default

    So the mallards that hatched in my yard on Murray 40 years ago were or were not chicken mallards? Honest question.

  12. #12
    Join Date
    Dec 2005
    Location
    Ballard's Landing
    Posts
    15,424

    Default

    Quote Originally Posted by JABIII View Post
    That should come as no surprise. We talked about it extensively on here 20 years ago, along with the feds, states, and many private entities as well. Including several in SC long before it became a money making operation...
    Ya know, the idea that DW had in 1990ish wasn’t a bad one.
    And for all intents and purposes it did work...
    Be proactive about improving public waterfowl habitat in South Carolina. It's not going to happen by itself, and our help is needed. We have the potential to winter thousands of waterfowl on public grounds if we fight for it.

  13. #13
    Join Date
    Feb 2003
    Location
    united states of america
    Posts
    21,584

    Default

    Humans have the ability to alter nature and create better hunting opportunities

  14. #14
    Join Date
    Aug 2009
    Location
    Probation
    Posts
    10,071

    Default

    Bump
    Quote Originally Posted by BOG View Post
    Tip:
    Although it is natural for you and seems to be out of your hands, try to suppress your natural inclination towards dumbassedness and do some research of your own.I wish you luck.
    Tekton Game Calls
    http://tektongamecalls.com

Bookmarks

Posting Permissions

  • You may not post new threads
  • You may not post replies
  • You may not post attachments
  • You may not edit your posts
  •