Geographical variability of the black-browed reed warbler Acrocephalus bistrigiceps swinhoe, 1860 on the Russian Far East

Presence of geographic variability in Acrocephalus bistrigiceps was mentioned only once by Y.Yamashina (Yamashina 1939). He pointed out some minor differences in plumage coloration among specimens from Manchuria, Sakhalin, Hokkaido and Honshu. But lacking representative data he didn’t make any taxonomic estimation of this phenomenon. Berndt Leisler with colleagues found out 3.5% differences in mtDNA marker cytochome b between samples from the mainland part of range and birds wintering in Thailand (Leisler et al. 1997). However the authors lacked samples of breeding birds from island populations.