Ancestral ranges concealed by local extinctions: the historical biogeography of the African and Asian Turdoides babblers and allies (Aves: Passeriformes)

• Aim To infer the historical biogeography of the genus Turdoides and allies, and to investigate the impact of the geological history of the Arabian Peninsula on the biogeographic interactions between Africa and Asia. Location Terrestrial Africa and Asia, with focus on the Middle East. Methods A five-loci molecular phylogeny was estimated by Bayesian inference and by maximum likelihood. Divergence times were approximated by Bayesian inference under a relaxed clock model, and non-parametrically by asmoothing algorithm between sister paths (PATHD8). Historical biogeography was reconstructed by maximum likelihood approach under the DEC-model, and by the parsimony-based Bayes-DIVA on the trees sampled from the target distribution from the Bayesian inference of the phylogeny. Results The clade comprising Turdoides and its close relatives originated in the end of the Miocene, and initially the Middle East region played an important role. The clade radiated into two subclades, one mainly distributed in Africa, and one distributed in southern Asia, the Middle East and northern and eastern Africa. Main conclusions We propose that local extinctions may have played a key role, in combination with dispersals and vicariance, in forming the present distribution pattern of the study group. The Middle East has been an important and dynamic area for the early evolution of the investigated babblers. Further, we conclude that constraints on biogeographical inference have stronger impact on the analysis than does the biogeographical model implied in the analysis.

Ämnesord

NATURVETENSKAP  -- Biologi -- Biologisk systematik (hsv//swe)

NATURAL SCIENCES  -- Biological Sciences -- Biological Systematics (hsv//eng)

Nyckelord

Arabian Peninsula

event-based biogeography

extinction

Middle East

Miocene

Pliocene

Tethys sea

Timaliidae

Turdoides

Publikations- och innehållstyp

vet (ämneskategori)

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