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Moltoni's Warbler (1 Viewer)

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shymollymawk

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Moltoni's Warbler Sylvia moltonii has recently been split from Subalpine Warbler.

reference: Mol. Phylogenet. Evol. 2008 May 16
A molecular phylogeny of the Sylvia cantillans complex: Cryptic species within the Mediterranean basin.
Mattia Brambilla, Severino Vitulano, Fernando Spina, Nicola Baccetti, Gabriel Gargallo, Elena Fabbri, Franca Guidali, Ettore Randi.

In A Birdwatcher's Guide to Italy (Ruggieri & Festari 2005) they say moltonii is also found in south-east France as well as most of mainland Italy. Does anybody know what specific area(s) of France they are referring to?

cheers

George
 
Interesting and not entirely surprising bar the fact that cantillans and albistriata are actually quite closely related and not candidates for a split also as has been mooted in some areas.

Also of interest is the 'Moltoni's Warbler' in Norfolk last year - was any song or calls heard/recorded?
 
Calls of the Norfolk bird were not recorded but were heard with two well known birders - it was generally silent. Fingers crossed that there are features visible on the photos that can clinch it without sole reliance on the call.

On another point, it is clear that the med is starting to reveal its true colours wrt cryptics- Balearic shrike will be next and some of the Cyprus endems will probably follow. Look forward to a widespread split of the Loxia group at some stage!

cheers, alan
 
Does this mean that subalpine will have to come off my list??? I've only seen 1cy and winter females in the south of Italy! No chance of identifying them further than that.
 
Not a very clear post;)

I meant this article:

"Mol. Phylogenet. Evol. 2008 May 16
A molecular phylogeny of the Sylvia cantillans complex: Cryptic species within the Mediterranean basin."
 
Yes, send me a pm with your e-mail address if you want it.
A shame they did not sample North African inornata though.
 
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Festari's article looks great. Should be translated for one of our birding magazines. Well there's a ? for southeast France, so maybe its moltoni there as well. And how did moltonii push in between the cantillans subspecies?
There are a lot of splits published regularly in Mol. Phylogenet. Evol., its worth keeping an eye on their website to see whats in the pipeline. Thanks for the info, I'm looking forward to Tuscany next summer!
 
gwatola said:
Festari's article looks great. Should be translated for one of our birding magazines. Well there's a ? for southeast France, so maybe its moltoni there as well. And how did moltonii push in between the cantillans subspecies?
Click to expand...

Festari's article was certainly a good thing in 2004, but is now unfortunately quite outdated (lacking the info of the recent Mol.Phylogenet.Evol. article of course, but also that of the other papers published by Brambilla et al. in 2006 in Ibis, and in 2008 in J.Evol.Biol, and the nomenclatural and historical info of the Bacetti et al. 2007 Bull. BOC paper [see Richard's post, above]). So just translating it would probably not be very useful now.

More recent data (Brambilla et al. 2006) suggest that the taxon that breeds in the western Alps, as well as in coastal extreme NW Italy (Riviera di Ponente) is cantillans. Thus moltonii as a breeding bird in France, still farther west, seems a bit unlikely, I think. (Bar the fact that cantillans [clade unknown] were also found breeding [always in pure pairs] at a few sites well within the mainland range of moltonii, so the reverse - moltonii as a rare breeding bird in the French range of cantillans - could at least conceivably also be a possibility.)

It's unclear that Moltoni's warbler actually ever "pushed between" the two cantillans populations. First, the presence of moltonii in northern mainland Italy doesn't seem to be a new thing - the fact that Subalpine Warblers from this area give trilling calls is actually known since the early 19th century at least. But with all the western populations lumped into cantillans, the significance of this was not recognized until recently. Second, the two cantillans populations appear reciprocally monophyletic, and are not each other's closest relative, the Italian population being genetically closer to albistriata than to the western population. These two populations have probably not been in geographical contact for a quite fair amount of time - possibly almost 2 MY...

Cheers,
Laurent -
 
Thanks Laurent, that makes sense with the Italian cantillans being closer to albistriata. 2 MY seems a long time (!), so it's interesting they don't split cantillans and albistriata.

cheers

George
 
l_raty said:
Second, the two cantillans populations appear reciprocally monophyletic, and are not each other's closest relative, the Italian population being genetically closer to albistriata than to the western population. These two populations have probably not been in geographical contact for a quite fair amount of time - possibly almost 2 MY...
Click to expand...

So let's play a little game;). Assuming there are eventually 3 species:

- moltonii
- western cantillans (+ inornata ?)
- Italian cantillans + albistriata

Can we keep the name cantillans for the second one ?

Would albistriata be the correct name for the third one or do we need to look for another name ?
 
gwatola said:
2 MY seems a long time (!), so it's interesting they don't split cantillans and albistriata.
Click to expand...

If they did, they would have to place the Italian cantillans (with or without albistriata) in a species different from the western ones.
Besides the genetic mitochondrial distance, there is not a single known (morphological, behavioral, etc...) difference between the two cantillans populations...

L -
 
Daniel Philippe said:
Can we keep the name cantillans for the second one ?
Would albistriata be the correct name for the third one or do we need to look for another name ?
Click to expand...

No to both.
The name cantillans is associated to Italian birds, it would apply to your third species.
The western (second) species would have to bear another name, possibly inornata.

L -
 
lewis20126 said:
Calls of the Norfolk bird were not recorded but were heard with two well known birders - it was generally silent. Fingers crossed that there are features visible on the photos that can clinch it without sole reliance on the call.
Click to expand...

There was an article about it in birding world if I remember rightly, sorry don't have the reference to hand, but I'm sure they did say that in their opinion it could be identified by plumage characters alone.
 
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