Biogeography of the Neotropical genus Malacoptila (Aves: Bucconidae): the influence of the Andean orogeny, Amazonian drainage evolution and palaeoclimate

Abstract

Aim To uncover geographical and temporal patterns of diversification in the puffbird genus Malacoptila, focusing on the influence of landscape and palaeoclimate evolution as drivers of diversification.Location Neotropical, with an emphasis on the Amazon basin.Methods We sequenced eight mtDNA and nuclear gene regions of 176 individuals belonging to seven of the eight recognized Malacoptila species. Concatenated and time calibrated coalescent multi-locus phylogenies, along with a Bayesian species delimitation analysis, were performed for the genus. Phylogeographical and historical demography patterns were reconstructed for the Amazonian species. Ancestral ranges estimation was performed in BioGeoBEARS.Results Our analysis recovered 23 reciprocally monophyletic lineages within Malacoptila. All currently recognized species were recovered as monophyletic. With the exception of M. semicincta, all species presented some level of intraspecific phylogeographical structure, varying up to 10 reciprocally monophyletic phylogroups (M. rufa). The distributions of these lineages are generally coincident with known Neotropical areas of endemism (AE). Main ConclusionOur results corroborate the influence of Andean uplift and the Plio-Pleistocene establishment of the current drainage system in Amazonia as likely drivers of diversification. The spatially structured genetic diversity that exists within Malacoptila is underestimated by current taxonomy and provides another example of widespread cryptic avian endemism in the Neotropics.

Biogeography and diversification of Rhegmatorhina (Aves: Thamnophilidae): Implications for the evolution of Amazonian landscapes during the Quaternary

“…Madeira River and its tributaries, as inferred previously for several avian lineages(Fernandes et al, 2012(Fernandes et al, , 2014Sousa-Neves, Aleixo, & Sequeira, 2013;Ferreira et al, 2017; see also below). Detailed morphological analyses may help clarify whether there is more than one diagnosable phenotype involved, but visual inspection of R. hoffmannsi skins at the MPEG and INPA collections…”

“…Population-level sampling of Psophia species also shows distinct demographic signatures for populations from different Amazonian areas of endemism, suggesting differential effects of climatic cycles on forest bird populations (Cheng et al, 2013;Ribas et al, 2012;Wang et al, 2017). Additional studies of other groups of Amazonian birds corroborate these findings, supporting both drainage evolution and climatic-driven changes on vegetation cover as important drivers of diversification during the Plio-Pleistocene (d 'Horta et al, 2013;Fernandes, Wink, Sardelli, & Aleixo, 2014;Fernandes et al, 2012;Ferreira, Aleixo, Ribas, & Santos, 2017;Schultz et al, 2017;Thom & Aleixo, 2015). However, incongruent patterns (Smith et al, 2014) suggest a complex history and a combination of biogeographic processes (including dispersal and vicariance) acting across multiple time scales.…”

“…Most surprising, there are two distinct lineages of R. hoffmannsi that overlap, with individuals from both lineages at the same locality (H5) and in two adjacent localities close to Porto Velho (H1 and H8). Denser sampling is needed to better understand the origin of this mtDNA structure, which may be related to major drainage capture events involving the Madeira River and its tributaries, as inferred previously for several avian lineages (Fernandes et al., , ; Sousa‐Neves, Aleixo, & Sequeira, ; Ferreira et al., ; see also below). Detailed morphological analyses may help clarify whether there is more than one diagnosable phenotype involved, but visual inspection of R. hoffmannsi skins at the MPEG and INPA collections (about 70 specimens total) did not reveal any obvious difference in plumage patterns (AA, CCR and M. Cohn‐Haft personal observation).…”

Diversification by host switching and dispersal shaped the diversity and distribution of avian malaria parasites in Amazonia

“…Second, the riverine barrier hypothesis (Wallace 1852), proposes that large Amazonian rivers acted as barriers to dispersal and promoted speciation. Recent studies have shown that the large rivers of the Amazon Basin are important barriers to gene flow and evidently have been responsible for allopatric speciation in avian taxa (Ribas et al 2012, Thom and Aleixo 2015, Ferreira et al 2017). However, Smith et al (2014) questioned the association between river drainage systems and the diversification of avian taxa.…”

Species delimitation and biogeography of the gnatcatchers and gnatwrens (Aves: Polioptilidae)

“…Molecular systematic studies on Neotropical birds frequently recover paraphyletic species and deep divergences comparable to species-level differentiation (e.g., Chaves et al, 2011;Gutiérrez-Pinto et al , 2012;Chaves et al, 2013;Smith et al , 2013;Rheindt et al , 2013;Cerqueira et al, 2016;Ferreira et al, 2017;Smith et al , 2017;Musher et al ., 2018). In our study, we used species delimitation via coalescent modeling for an entire avian family and found that the majority of currently defined subspecies in Polioptilidae could be recognized as species based on their genealogical histories.…”