Prunellidae (1 Viewer)

[l_raty]

The first ed. of Bechstein's Gemeinnützige Naturgeschichte Deutschlands, which is reviewed in this issue of Allgemeine Literatur-Zeitung (it's Band 4, not Band 3 as Richmond suggests on the card), is this: Gemeinnützige Naturgeschichte Deutschlands nach allen drey Reichen
Here, Bechstein makes the dipper a starling (Sturnus); in a footnote he says he did this due to the bird's almost closed nostrils, but that otherwise it has a lot in common with warblers, and that others make it a thrush.

In the Allgemeine Literatur-Zeitung review, the reviewer stated that the dipper "muss gewiss in eine eigene Gattung gebracht werden" (must certainly be placed in its own genus), and explained why. But at this point, this was his own view only -- not that of Bechstein in the book he was reviewing -- and he suggested no name. Richmond says the reviewer was Borkhausen, acting anonymously.

Borkhausen introduced Cinclus in:
Borkhausen MB. 1897. Deutsche Fauna, oder kurzgefaßte Naturgeschichte der Thiere Deutschlands. Erster Theil. Säugthiere und Vögel. Varrentrapp und Wenner, Frankfurt am Main.
p. 300 : Deutsche Fauna, oder, Kurzgefasste Naturgeschichte der Thiere Deutschlands - Biodiversity Heritage Library
type (monotypy) Cinclus hydrophilus Borkhausen 1897.

 

[Jim LeNomenclatoriste]

Ok, I've found .

Bd.3:pt.1 (1807) - Gemeinnützige Naturgeschichte Deutschlands nach allen drey Reichen - Biodiversity Heritage Library

The Biodiversity Heritage Library works collaboratively to make biodiversity literature openly available to the world as part of a global biodiversity community.

www.biodiversitylibrary.org

This volume dates from 1807 but according to wikipedia, the volumes published between 1801 and 1809 are the second edition. I can't find the first editions (1789-95)

Ah, damn, it's not good, I made a mistake. I confused.... 😤😤

 

[mb1848]

Cinclus Borkhausen 1797
Deutsche Fauna, oder, Kurzgefasste Naturgeschichte der Thiere Deutschlands - Biodiversity Heritage Library . Borkhausen mentions 14 July 1796 review of Bechstein. The book was owned by Richmond. Forword dated April 1797.
Going back to Bechstein 1795 the name on the plate is Sturnus alpina. at the end, Page XXI.
Gemeinnützige Naturgeschichte Deutschlands nach allen drey Reichen .

 

[Jim LeNomenclatoriste]

Cinclus Borkhausen 1797
Deutsche Fauna, oder, Kurzgefasste Naturgeschichte der Thiere Deutschlands - Biodiversity Heritage Library . Borkhausen mentions 14 July 1796 review of Bechstein. The book was owned by Richmond. Forword dated April 1797.
Going back to Bechstein 1795 the name on the plate is Sturnus alpina. at the end, Page XXI.
Gemeinnützige Naturgeschichte Deutschlands nach allen drey Reichen .

Yesterday I thought I put the right link but it's not the one I was looking for

 

[Jim LeNomenclatoriste]

the Committee have retained Accentor for the Hedge-Sparrows as a “nomen conservandum” ” (BOU 1915).

it is an equivalent of Nomen Protectum?

 

[l_raty]

it is an equivalent of Nomen Protectum?

"Nomen conservandum" means "name to be conserved". The term as such has no standing under the current Code. The closest thing there is in the ICZN, is the notion of "conserved name" : "A name otherwise unavailable or invalid that the Commission, by the use of its plenary power, has enabled to be used as a valid name by removal of the known obstacles to such use (see conserve)." But only the Commission can do that.
So far as the ICZN is concerned, the BOU Committee here was merely an author acting in violation of the Code (and using a Latin term to describe his own action).

A nomen protectum, in the ICZN, is a long and widely used name that was given precedence over an unused senior synonym / homonym, through a action taken explicitly under Art. 23.9.2 of the 4th edition of the ICZN. No name could possibly have been made a nomen protectum prior to 1 Jan 2000, as the 4th edition of the ICZN, and therefore its Art. 23.9.2, were not in force before this date.

 

[mb1848]

H&M 4th checklist family by family says:
1 The name Accentor Bechstein, 1797 is considered a junior synonym.
H&M4 Checklist family by family - The Trust for Avian Systematics .

Gregory & Dickinson 2012:

An assessment of three little-noticed papers on avian nomenclature by G. N. Kashin during 1978-1982​

Kashin regretted that Bechstein’s use of the generic name Accentor for the dipper did not appear in Greenway (1960: 374) and suggested that there was some evidence that p. 47 in the second ‘hundert’ of Bechstein’s Getreue Abbildungen ... appeared in 1796—which is not inconsistent with the report of Mey (2011). Kashin, however, did not suggest change here, and because the ornithological community has settled on using Cinclus Borkhausen, 1797 (April), believing Accentor Bechstein to date from September, 1797, it seems wise not to make changes. However, in the context of any List of Available Names this issue may have to be resolved by means of an application to suppress Bechstein’s name and conserve the status quo.
An example of how to do it?

Case 3640 Touit G.R. Gray, 1855 and Prosopeia Bonaparte, 1854 (Aves, psittacidae): proposed conservation of usage.​

Bock 1994 states Accentor Bechstein, 1802 = Prunella), objectively invalid name [Art. 39 and 79(b)(iii)].

 

[Jim LeNomenclatoriste]

All in all, I think there is a mistake from myself. I wanted to look for the OD of Accentor Bechstein, 1795, because Richmond index genera mentions it by indicating on its card that the type species was Sturnus cinclus. I search then I find the book and I notice that the species written inside is Accentor alpinus 😑😑😑

 

[l_raty]

Bock 1994 states Accentor Bechstein, 1802 = Prunella), objectively invalid name [Art. 39 and 79(b)(iii)].

Not really -- what he states is that "Accentoridae Gray, 1840" (actually proposed by Gray as a subfamily name Accentorinae), the type of which is Accentor Bechstein 1800 (not "1802"; a subjective synonym of (i.e., not really "=" to, either) Prunella Vieillot 1816) is objectively invalid, because of Art. 39 and 79(b)(iii).

Art. 39 of the 3rd ed. of the ICZN (which was in force in 1994) was a bit different from the current version, but both state that a family-group name based on a junior homonym cannot be valid. Accentor Bechstein 1800 is a junior homonym (of Accentor Bechstein 1797), hence Accentoridae cannot be a valid name, and Prunellidae Blackwelder 1907 (misattributed by Bock to Richmond 1908) must be used instead.

Art. 79(b)(iii) of the 3rd ed. of the ICZN was equivalent to the current Art. 81.2.3, and describes the principles which should guide the Commission in its use of the Plenary Power, when a senior subjective synonym threatens a name in wide use. Bock listed this article because he wanted to have Accentorinae Gray 1840 (along with > 100 other names) suppressed by the Commission, which never happened in practice. (And would be a complete waste of time in the present case, given that a standard application of the Code makes the name invalid, i.e., no threat actually exists.)

 

[mb1848]

I really like the genus for alpina/us of Laiscopus Gloger.
The Key:
The Key to Scientific Names - Birds of the World .
BHL says Issued in 6 Hft., of which 1-5, pp. 1-400, appeared in 1841. So page 267 is possibly 1841; 1842 is on the titlepage.
Bd.1 (1842) - Gemeinnütziges Hand- und Hilfsbuch der Naturgeschichte - Biodiversity Heritage Library .
October 1841 ?forword?
Bd.1 (1842) - Gemeinnütziges Hand- und Hilfsbuch der Naturgeschichte - Biodiversity Heritage Library .
I like the 3 genus set up by Kaup.
c. 1 - Skizzirte Entwickelungs-Geschichte und natürliches System der europäischen Thierwelt - Biodiversity Heritage Library .
c. 1 - Skizzirte Entwickelungs-Geschichte und natürliches System der europäischen Thierwelt - Biodiversity Heritage Library .
c. 1 - Skizzirte Entwickelungs-Geschichte und natürliches System der europäischen Thierwelt - Biodiversity Heritage Library .
c. 1 - Skizzirte Entwickelungs-Geschichte und natürliches System der europäischen Thierwelt - Biodiversity Heritage Library .

 

[Xenospiza]

I am all in favour of keeping the rather uniform accentors in Prunella...
But I won't deny Laiscopus fits really well. The Dutch (and middle-Franconian German) word lei for slate is related to Greek λᾶας: one of my first observations of Alpine Accentor was of a bird throwing bits of slate off a mountain above me!

 

[albertonykus]

Lifjeld, J.T., M. de Gabriel Hernando, B. Fuertes Marcos, G. Grønstøl, J.A. Anmarkrud, M. Matschiner, and E.H. Leder (2023)
Rapid sperm length divergence in a polygynandrous passerine: a mechanism of cryptic speciation?
Evolution (advance online publication)
doi: 10.1093/evolut/qpad146

When populations become geographically isolated, they begin to diverge in various traits and at variable rates. The dynamics of such trait divergences are relevant for understanding evolutionary processes such as local adaptation and speciation. Here we examine divergences in sperm and body structures in a polygynandrous songbird, the alpine accentor (Prunella collaris) between two allopatric high-altitude populations, in Morocco and Spain. The populations diverged around 82 thousand years ago, as estimated with a coalescence-based phylogenetic analysis of genome-wide single nucleotide polymorphisms. We found that birds in the two areas had non-overlapping sperm lengths, which suggests adaptation to divergent female reproductive tract environments. Sperm length also showed an exceptionally low coefficient of among-male variation, a signal of strong stabilizing selection imposed by sperm competition. The evolutionary rate of sperm length was almost twice the rates for the most divergent morphological traits, and more than three times higher than expected from literature data over a similar generational timescale. This rapid evolution of a key reproductive trait has implications for reproductive isolation and ultimately for speciation. Strong selection for different sperm length optima in allopatry predicts conspecific sperm precedence and disruptive selection in sympatry, hence a possible postcopulatory prezygotic barrier to gene flow.

 

[vinividivici]

Мликовский, Йиржи, and Ярослав Андреевич Редькин. [Mlíkovský, Jiří, and Yaroslav Andreevich Red’kin.] 2023.
Таксономическая ревизия сибирской завирушки Prunella montanella (Pallas, 1776) (Aves: Prunellidae). [Taxonomic revision of the Siberian Accentor Prunella montana (Pallas, 1776) (Aves: Prunellidae).]
Русский орнитологический журнал [Russian Journal of Ornithology], 32 (2378): 5769-5790.

We revised the taxonomy of the Siberian Accentor Prunella montanella based on 338 museum specimens. We distinguish four subspecies, as fol-lows: Prunella montanella montanella (Pallas, 1776) (north-western form), P. m. badia Portenko, 1929 (north-eastern form), P. m. gebleri n. ssp. (south-western form), and P. m. loskoti n. ssp. (south-eastern form).

 

[George Sangster]

Thank you for posting this. Compared with many other descriptions of new subspecies, this is a pretty good paper. However, a crucial element is missing. When purported subspecies are continuously distributed, an obvious pitfall is clinal variation. In such cases, 'subspecies' should not be delimited a priori. If you subdivide a cline into two 'taxa', and the sample size is large enough, you will find statistically significant differences, but this says nothing about the validity of the taxa. What is needed is an analysis of geographic variation.

Judging from the DFA (which uses a priory defined groups) of morphometric variation (page 5771), there is considerable overlap between badia and montanella, and between gebleri and loskoti. I wonder if this (and how much of this) overlap is due to clinal variation. The authors did not seem to have tested this.

The photographs show differences in plumage between the four taxa, but it is not clear how consistent the differences actually are. Are all badia distinct from all montanella? Are all gebleri distinct from all loskoti? Again, is there a cline or is variation of the two taxa discrete (diagnostic)?

If the authors have recorded the morphometric and plumage character states separately for each specimen, and noted the locality of each specimen, analyses of geographic variation may form a nice follow-up paper.

 

[Jacana]

Jiang, Z., Zang, W., Ericson, P.G.P. et al. Gene flow and an anomaly zone complicate phylogenomic inference in a rapidly radiated avian family (Prunellidae). BMC Biol 22, 49 (2024). Gene flow and an anomaly zone complicate phylogenomic inference in a rapidly radiated avian family (Prunellidae) - BMC Biology

Abstract
Background
Resolving the phylogeny of rapidly radiating lineages presents a challenge when building the Tree of Life. An Old World avian family Prunellidae (Accentors) comprises twelve species that rapidly diversified at the Pliocene–Pleistocene boundary.

Results
Here we investigate the phylogenetic relationships of all species of Prunellidae using a chromosome-level de novo assembly of Prunella strophiata and 36 high-coverage resequenced genomes. We use homologous alignments of thousands of exonic and intronic loci to build the coalescent and concatenated phylogenies and recover four different species trees. Topology tests show a large degree of gene tree-species tree discordance but only 40–54% of intronic gene trees and 36–75% of exonic genic trees can be explained by incomplete lineage sorting and gene tree estimation errors. Estimated branch lengths for three successive internal branches in the inferred species trees suggest the existence of an empirical anomaly zone. The most common topology recovered for species in this anomaly zone was not similar to any coalescent or concatenated inference phylogenies, suggesting presence of anomalous gene trees. However, this interpretation is complicated by the presence of gene flow because extensive introgression was detected among these species. When exploring tree topology distributions, introgression, and regional variation in recombination rate, we find that many autosomal regions contain signatures of introgression and thus may mislead phylogenetic inference. Conversely, the phylogenetic signal is concentrated to regions with low-recombination rate, such as the Z chromosome, which are also more resistant to interspecific introgression.

Conclusions
Collectively, our results suggest that phylogenomic inference should consider the underlying genomic architecture to maximize the consistency of phylogenomic signal.

 

[Jim LeNomenclatoriste]

Under what name and on what page did Gessner describe the Dunnock?

 

[kweetal]

Here is a wild guess: Prunella (can't say I recognize the drawing and my Latin a a bit ferrugineus)
"De Prunella"
Lib.2-3 (1585-1586) - Conradi Gesneri medici Tigurini Historiae animalium liber primus de quadrupedibus viuiparis : opus philosophis, medicis, grammaticis, philologis, poëtis, & omnibus rerum linguarumq́ue variarum studiosis, vtilissimum simul iucundissimumq́ue futurum - Biodiversity Heritage Library

 

[Jim LeNomenclatoriste]

Here is a wild guess: Prunella (can't say I recognize the drawing and my Latin a a bit ferrugineus)
"De Prunella"
Lib.2-3 (1585-1586) - Conradi Gesneri medici Tigurini Historiae animalium liber primus de quadrupedibus viuiparis : opus philosophis, medicis, grammaticis, philologis, poëtis, & omnibus rerum linguarumq́ue variarum studiosis, vtilissimum simul iucundissimumq́ue futurum - Biodiversity Heritage Library

Merci