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

• Alström, Per

  • SLU Swedish Species Information Centre, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences
    
  • Chinese Academy of Sciences
  • Uppsala University

Sustainable Development Goals

Protect, restore and promote sustainable use of terrestrial ecosystems, sustainably manage forests, combat desertification, and halt and reverse land degradation and halt biodiversity loss


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