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Abstract

The babblers are a diverse group of passerine birds comprising 452 species. The group was long regarded as a "scrap basket" in taxonomic classification schemes. Although several studies have assessed the phylogenetic relationships for subsets of babblers during the past two decades, a comprehensive phylogeny of this group has been lacking. In this study, we used five mitochondrial and seven nuclear loci to generate a dated phylogeny for babblers. This phylogeny includes 402 species (ca. 89% of the overall clade) from 75 genera (97%) and all five currently recognized families, providing a robust basis for taxonomic revision. Our phylogeny supports seven major clades and reveals several non-monophyletic genera. Divergence time estimates indicate that the seven major clades diverged around the same time (18-20 million years ago, Ma) in the early Miocene. We use the phylogeny in a consistent way to propose a new taxonomy, with seven families and 64 genera of babblers, and a new linear sequence of names.

Keywords

Babblers; Passeriformes; Phylogeny; Supertree; Taxonomy; Rogue taxa; Temporal banding

Published in

Molecular Phylogenetics and Evolution
2019, volume: 130, pages: 346-356
Publisher: ACADEMIC PRESS INC ELSEVIER SCIENCE

SLU Authors

Global goals (SDG)

SDG15 Life on land

UKÄ Subject classification

Evolutionary Biology
Biological Systematics

Publication identifier

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ympev.2018.10.010

Permanent link to this page (URI)

https://res.slu.se/id/publ/97838