25
views
0
recommends
+1 Recommend
0 collections
    0
    shares
      • Record: found
      • Abstract: found
      • Article: not found

      What is not a bird of paradise? Molecular and morphological evidence places Macgregoria in the Meliphagidae and the Cnemophilinae near the base of the corvoid tree.

      1 ,
      Proceedings. Biological sciences
      The Royal Society

      Read this article at

      ScienceOpenPublisherPMC
      Bookmark
          There is no author summary for this article yet. Authors can add summaries to their articles on ScienceOpen to make them more accessible to a non-specialist audience.

          Abstract

          The cnemophiline 'birds of paradise' (Cnemophilinae) and Macgregor's 'bird of paradise' (Macgregoria) have traditionally been included in the Paradisaeidae although their relationships within the group have been enigmatic and subject to repeated discussion in the literature. Here we use sequences from two mitochondrial genes, cytochrome b and cytochrome oxidase I, along with a suite of morphological characters, to investigate their relationships to paradisaeids and other members of the passerine Parvorder Corvida. The combined data strongly support the removal of both groups from the birds of paradise: the cnemophilines are basal members of the Corvoidea and Macgregoria is a member of the Meliphagoidea and embedded in the honeyeaters (Meliphagidae) close to the genus Melipotes. The amount of sequence divergence among basal passeriforms and members of the Corvida, as well as available fossil evidence for Australian corvidans, suggest that cnemophilines represent an ancient lineage within the corvoid radiation. Because cnemophilines and Macgregoria have been placed at the base of the paradisaeid tree, hypotheses of morphological, behavioural and ecological character-state transformations within the family will require reanalysis.

          Related collections

          Author and article information

          Journal
          Proc. Biol. Sci.
          Proceedings. Biological sciences
          The Royal Society
          0962-8452
          0962-8452
          Feb 07 2000
          : 267
          : 1440
          Affiliations
          [1 ] Department of Ornithology, American Museum of Natural History, New York, NY 10024, USA. jlc@amnh.org
          Article
          10.1098/rspb.2000.0992
          1690532
          10714877
          86363536-f759-4116-86f6-75ea4ffc6ff4
          History

          Comments

          Comment on this article