A New Species of Boubou (Malaconotidae:Laniarius) From the Albertine Rift

Abstract

Résumé.-Nous décrivons ici Laniarius willardi, une nouvelle espèce de la famille des Malaconotidae vivant au Rift Albertine, en Afrique. Le caractère morphologique le plus remarquable de cette espèce est un iris gris à bleu-gris. Ceci et des données morphométriques externes indiquent que L. willardi est différent des autres Laniarius. De plus, L. willardi est génétiquement différent et son plus proche parent est L. poensis camerunensis, au Cameroun. L. atrococcineus et L. leucorhynchus forment le clade saeur de L. willardi-L. p. camerunensis. L. willardi et L. p. holomelas, dont la répartition géographique est similaire, diffèrent de , % en ce qui concerne la divergence de la séquence corrigée. Les données altitudinales récoltées sur des spécimens de musée suggèrent qu'il existe une possibilité de ségrégation altitudinale des espèces à ~  m, L. willardi étant présent à des altitudes plus faibles. Notre vaste échantillonnage de ce taxon indique que () les races L. poensis ne forment pas un clade monophylétique, () L. p. camerunensis peut représenter des lignées multiples qui ne sont pas saeurs et () au moins une race de L. fuelleborni usambaricus est génétiquement distincte des autres races de cette espèce.-678 - In , T.P.G., C.K., and B.D.M. conducted collections-based field work in the southern region of Uganda, in the Albertine Rift system. Their survey was conducted on privately held property primarily used as a banana plantation, which included the only forest contiguous with the Bwindi Impenetrable National Park in the area. During this survey, they collected  black Laniarius specimens that they were forced to attribute to L. poensis holomelas on the basis of size and plumage characteristics. However, these specimens, and an additional Field Museum of Natural History (FMNH) specimen collected in Burundi in , were noted as having a unique iris color (gray to blue-gray) unlike that shown for any black Laniarius species in field guides (reddish-black to black). We could find no published reports describing blue-gray irides in adults of black Laniarius species, which reinforced concerns about the identification of these specimens (Marks et al. ).Further questions related to species limits and taxonomy of black Laniarius species are raised by the broader distributions of L. poensis and L. fuelleborni. The former has a significant geographic disjunction between subspecies in the Albertine Rift and Mt. Cameroon (Fig. ), and the latter has populations isolated on different mountains of the Eastern Arc, as well as a population in southwestern Tanzania and northern Malawi (Fry et al. ). Taxonomically, these two species have been linked; races of L. poensis were historically recognized as subspecies of L. fuelleborni (Mayr and Greenway ). Also, L. poensis and L. fuelleborni along with L. leucorhynchus are considered a superspecies (Fry et al. ). However, no phylogenetic study has addressed the relationships among these populations.We had two goals in the present study. First, we con...

Population genetic structure of Grauer's Swamp Warbler Bradypterus graueri, an Albertine Rift endemic

“…Several studies have highlighted dispersal in the diversification of tropical birds and mammals across the Albertine Rift (Voelker et al . , Engel et al . , Roy et al .…”

“…It is conceivable that individuals dispersed via streams, at least locally. Several studies have highlighted dispersal in the diversification of tropical birds and mammals across the Albertine Rift (Voelker et al 2010b, Engel et al 2014, Roy et al 2014, Demos et al 2015, and it seems implausible that all Albertine Rift montane swamp habitats were ever directly connected; hence, dispersal must have played a role. Our data suggest that divergence was initiated not more than 170 thousand years ago.…”

“…We investigated genetic structure and diversity among most of the extant populations of B. graueri and compared our data with published work on other endemic Albertine Rift species, a region for which few published comparative avian data exist (e.g. Voelker et al 2010b, Engel et al 2014. We also compare our results with those of the endangered Mountain Gorilla Gorilla gorilla beringei and Grauer's Gorilla Gorilla gorilla graueri, which share a distribution similar to that of B. graueri.…”

“…, Voelker et al . ) and is restricted to montane swamps above 1900 m near Lakes Kivu and Edward in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), southwestern Uganda, northern and southwestern Rwanda, and northern Burundi (Fig. ; Urban et al .…”

Comparative niche modeling of two bush-shrikes (Laniarius) and the conservation of mid-elevation Afromontane forests of the Albertine Rift

“…New vertebrate species are still being described from the area, including birds (Engel et al 2014), small mammals (Kerbis Peterhans et al 2013a, 2013b, lizards (Greenbaum et al , 2012, and amphibians (Evans et al 2011, Greenbaum et al 2013, Portillo and Greenbaum 2014a, 2014b. Voelker et al (2010) showed that sooty bush-shrikes in the genus Laniarius that occur in mid-elevation forests in the Albertine Rift are morphologically and phylogenetically distinct from those that inhabit higher-elevations forests. They described the mid-elevation taxon as Laniarius willardi (Willard's Sooty Boubou), which is also vocally distinct (recordings deposited in xeno-canto: http://www.xeno-canto.org/).…”