Biology session

The white-tailed eagle (Haliaeetus albicilla, Linnaeus 1758) is a large raptor species, whose southernmost population is located in the Carpathian Basin. After a drastic decrease in the early 20th century, from the 1970's the European population have started to recover. In the 1970s, the total Hungarian breeding population was estimated 2-12 pairs, all inhabiting the Lower Danube Valley, with presumably no breeding birds in the Tiszántúl region. Nowadays, population census of the country is more than 220 breeding pairs, with abundant territories also in the Tiszántúl.

Phylogeography throughout the distribution range of the species was studied using the mitochondrial DNA control region, revealing two distinct haplogroups with predominantly eastern or western distribution. According to this, the species is suggested to have survived the last glacial event in two main refugia, probably located in Central and Western Eurasia. This distribution pattern was later refined with involving samples from the breeding populations of Central Europe, describing several new haplotypes from this region. However, phylogography and populaton structure of the population inhabiting the Carpathian Basin was not studied until now.

Aim of our research was to answer two major questions. On the one hand, we attempted to reveal phylogeographical relations of the Hungarian white-tailed eagle population in relation to other European populations, using a 500 bp fragment of the mitochondrial DNA control region, based on 16 nestling from the Carpathian Basin.

Our second goal was to highlight the origin of the Tiszántúl population. According to our two main hypothesis, pairs in this breeding area may originate (1) from wintering birds that arrivied from the North European populations in great numbers and some of them could have settled in the area, or (2) with dispersal of birds of the southwestern population, due to the expansion of the breeding area. To answer this question, we studied genetic structure and gene-flow between southwestern and Tiszántúl breeding areas using nine nuclear microsatellite loci, involving 61 nestling from different localities of the Carpathian Basin. As DNA source, we used plucked feathers of nestling birds,

We found that in the haplotypes belonging to both major haplogroups were present in the Carpahian Basin. Moreover, we found no genetic differentiation between southwestern and Tiszántúl breeding areas, suggesting that the white-tailed eagles inhabiting the Carpathian Basin belong to one single population. According to these results, birds breeding in the Tiszántúl region can be originated from the southwestern area of the Carpathian Basin.