Genetic diversity of two populations of the tufted puffin Fratercula cirrhata (Pallas, 1769)

The tufted puffin Fratercula cirrhata (Charadriiformes: Alcidae) is distributed throughout the boreal and low Arctic areas of the North Pacific, from California, USA to Hokkaido, Japan. Few studies have investigated the genetic diversity of this species. Therefore, we analyzed the genetic diversity of two captive populations using nucleotide sequences of two mitochondrial loci (COX1 and D-loop) and one nuclear locus (RHBG). We sequenced these loci for birds from Tokyo Sea Life Park (Kasai Rinkai Suizokuen), originally from Alaska, and birds from Aqua World Oarai, originally from far eastern Russia. We found five COX1 haplotypes and 17 D-loop haplotypes for the mitochondrial loci, and obtained 14 predicted haplotypes for the nuclear RHBG locus. The major haplotypes of all three loci occurred in individuals from both populations. Thus, there were no clear genetic differences between the populations with respect to these three loci. Although the breeding range of the tufted puffin covers the boreal and low Arctic from California to Hokkaido, our results suggest that the species has not genetically diverged within its breeding range.