.2019 Mar 15;9(1):4655.

doi: 10.1038/s41598-019-41081-9.

Vagrant birds as a dispersal vector in transoceanic range expansion of vascular plants

Jesse M Kalwij^{1 2}, Diego Medan^{3 4}, Jürgen Kellermann^{5 6}, Michelle Greve⁷, Steven L Chown⁸

Affiliations

¹ Centre for Ecological Genomics and Wildlife Conservation, Department of Zoology, University of Johannesburg, Auckland Park, 2006, South Africa. jessek@uj.ac.za.
² Institute of Geography and Geoecology, Karlsruhe Institute of Technology, Reinhard-Baumeister-Platz 1, 76131, Karlsruhe, Germany. jessek@uj.ac.za.
³ Cátedra de Botánica General, Facultad de Agronomía, Universidad de Buenos Aires, Buenos Aires, Argentina.
⁴ Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas (CONICET), Buenos Aires, Argentina.
⁵ State Herbarium of South Australia, Department for Environment and Water, GPO Box 1047, Adelaide, South Australia, 5001, Australia.
⁶ The University of Adelaide, School of Biological Sciences, Adelaide, South Australia, 5005, Australia.
⁷ Department of Plant and Soil Sciences, University of Pretoria, Private Bag X20, Hatfield, 0028, South Africa.
⁸ School of Biological Sciences, Monash University, Clayton, Victoria, 3800, Australia.

PMID:30874602
PMCID: PMC6420631
DOI: 10.1038/s41598-019-41081-9

Vagrant birds as a dispersal vector in transoceanic range expansion of vascular plants

Jesse M Kalwij et al. Sci Rep.2019.

.2019 Mar 15;9(1):4655.

doi: 10.1038/s41598-019-41081-9.

Authors

Jesse M Kalwij^{1 2}, Diego Medan^{3 4}, Jürgen Kellermann^{5 6}, Michelle Greve⁷, Steven L Chown⁸

Affiliations

¹ Centre for Ecological Genomics and Wildlife Conservation, Department of Zoology, University of Johannesburg, Auckland Park, 2006, South Africa. jessek@uj.ac.za.
² Institute of Geography and Geoecology, Karlsruhe Institute of Technology, Reinhard-Baumeister-Platz 1, 76131, Karlsruhe, Germany. jessek@uj.ac.za.
³ Cátedra de Botánica General, Facultad de Agronomía, Universidad de Buenos Aires, Buenos Aires, Argentina.
⁴ Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas (CONICET), Buenos Aires, Argentina.
⁵ State Herbarium of South Australia, Department for Environment and Water, GPO Box 1047, Adelaide, South Australia, 5001, Australia.
⁶ The University of Adelaide, School of Biological Sciences, Adelaide, South Australia, 5005, Australia.
⁷ Department of Plant and Soil Sciences, University of Pretoria, Private Bag X20, Hatfield, 0028, South Africa.
⁸ School of Biological Sciences, Monash University, Clayton, Victoria, 3800, Australia.

PMID:30874602
PMCID: PMC6420631
DOI: 10.1038/s41598-019-41081-9

Abstract

Birds are thought to be important vectors underlying the disjunct distribution patterns of some terrestrial biota. Here, we investigate the role of birds in the colonisation by Ochetophila trinervis (Rhamnaceae), a vascular plant from the southern Andes, of sub-Antarctic Marion Island. The location of O. trinervis on the island far from human activities, in combination with a reconstruction of island visitors' travel history, precludes an anthropogenic introduction. Notably, three bird species occurring in the southern Andes inland have been observed as vagrants on Marion Island, with the barn swallow Hirundo rustica as the most common one. This vagrant displays long-distance migratory behaviour, eats seeds when insects are in short supply, and has started breeding in South America since the 1980s. Since naturalised O. trinervis has never been found outside the southern Andes and its diaspores are incapable of surviving in seawater or dispersing by wind, a natural avian dispersal event from the Andes to Marion Island, a distance of >7500 km, remains the only probable explanation. Although one self-incompatible shrub seems doomed to remain solitary, its mere establishment on a Southern Ocean island demonstrates the potential of vagrancy as a driver of extreme long-distance dispersal of terrestrial biota.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare no competing interests.

Figures

**Figure 1**
Overview of the plant morphology ofOchetophila trinervis on Marion Island: (a) some 25 years after establishment, the habitus remains a dwarf shrub; (b) detail of a twig showing the 3-nerved abaxial venation pattern; and (c) partial transection of a leaf, with arrows indicating the location of epidermis stomata on both leaf sides.

**Figure 2**
Majority-rule consensus tree (Bayesian analysis) of Colletieae, including sp. Marion Island, based ontrnL-F sequence data, indicating that the Marion Island species is the same species as theOchetophila trinervis specimen from South America. Numbers above nodes represent posterior probabilities, numbers below are bootstrap values of the ML analysis. Posterior probabilities below 0.80 and bootstrap values below 60% are not indicated.

**Figure 3**
Overview of the known distribution range ofOchetophila trinervis in South America (▲) and the location of Marion Island (•) in the sub-Antarctic Indian Ocean (Projection: Lambert azimuthal equal-area for the South Pole). The arrow depicts the Antarctic Circumpolar Current (ACC), whereas the dashed lines represent the major oceanic fronts: Subtropical Front (STF), Subantarctic Front (SAF), Polar Front (PF), and Southern Antarctic Circumpolar Current Front (SACCF). The inset depicts the geographical dimensions of Marion Island (Projection: Transverse Mercator), the location of the permanently manned base (▪), the current and former field huts (▫), and of the only knownO. trinervis shrub (•).

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Vagrant birds as a dispersal vector in transoceanic range expansion of vascular plants

Affiliations

Vagrant birds as a dispersal vector in transoceanic range expansion of vascular plants

Authors

Affiliations

Abstract

Conflict of interest statement

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