Phylogeny and Evolution of Swallows (Hirundinidae) With a Transcriptomic Perspective on Seasonal Migration

Ecological niche divergence or ecological niche partitioning in a widespread Neotropical bird lineage

“…Widespread modern taxa, such as P. tapera , P. subis , and P. chalybea , have large niches similar to the ancestral state, while restricted range taxa have evolved into narrower niche spaces (with P. murphyi even showing evidence for niche expansion), and some of these taxa would appear to have niche divergence if not compared within the larger framework of the genus Progne . A scaleless phylogeny based on Brown (2019) is shown for reference, with the basal node shown as the “Ancestral Estimate”. Figure prepared with Inkscape 1.2 (Inkscape Project, 2022) and R package rasterVis (Perpiñán & Hijmans, 2023).…”

“…I was unable to reject the null hypothesis of niche conservatism for most of Progne , providing further evidence that organisms are unlikely to have rapid niche shifts while diversifying (Peterson, Soberón & Sanchez-Cordero, 1999). Evolutionary reconstructions indicate that the ancestral Progne was a South American species with a broad ecological niche, and that it was at least partially migratory (Brown, 2019), similar to the ecology of the extant Progne tapera . The next basal groups included P. subis , a long-distance North American migrant, and the range-restricted species pair P. murphyi and P. modesta .…”

“…Given that this genus is monophyletic and its phylogenetic relationships have been well documented (Moyle et al, 2008;Brown, 2019), it is possible to explore the evolutionary history of ecological niche traits. Studying ecological niche evolution in Progne provides an opportunity to examine niche differentiation in a wide-ranging genus that has evolved migratory and locally endemic resident forms that are largely conserved morphologically, as well as to test whether a 6 geographically widespread species complex has evolved to take advantage of new ecological niches or has merely partitioned the ancestral species' ecological niche.…”

Time trees and clock genes: a systematic review and comparative analysis of contemporary avian migration genetics

“…Several studies have reported such relationships (Liedvogel et al ., 2009; Caprioli et al ., 2012; Kuhn et al ., 2013) whilst others found no evidence for an association (Peterson et al ., 2013; Contina et al ., 2018; Parody‐Merino et al ., 2019). Additionally, several transcriptomic studies on related species have detected no differences in expression levels of key clock genes (Jones et al ., 2008 a ; Franchini et al ., 2017; Brown, 2019) used in candidate gene association studies.…”

“…Significant correlations were observed for all genes measured with environmental variables such as latitude, temperature, and breeding density; in particular, longer alleles were associated with more eastern breeding latitudes (Bourret & Garant, 2015). In a transcriptomics study, several regions were identified that putatively co‐varied with migration phenology in tree swallows, although none corresponded to previously identified candidate genes (Brown, 2019).…”