Avian phylogeny (1 Viewer)

[Acanthis]

Evolutionary history

I prefer considering Aves as being represented by the last (i.e. most recent) common ancestor of all extant birds and all it's descendants. According to this definition, the term Aves is synonymous to modern (or crown) birds.

www.bird-phylogeny.de

A nicely laid out and well-illustrated German website covering the latest advances in the understanding of avian phylogeny.
Also it's in English for those of us who are anglophone monoglots.😄

 

[Acanthis]

On this page https://www.bird-phylogeny.de/note-avian-orders/ the author has created an interesting tree based on a possible future phylogeny where a ordinal cutoff point of less than 52my old is used. Not sure why that time limit exactly.
Some of the new names are controversial but overall the tree is very thought provoking.

 

[Jim LeNomenclatoriste]

Kinball & al. (2020) found that Cracidae and Megapodiidae are not sister taxa, so recognize Megapodiiformes (or Craciformes) as separate order rendering this clade paraphyletic

 

[jts1882]

Kinball & al. (2020) found that Cracidae and Megapodiidae are not sister taxa, so recognize Megapodiiformes (or Craciformes) as separate order rendering this clade paraphyletic

Not sure I follow. Didn't they find Megapodiidae as first branching, which is consistent with a split between Megapodiiformes and a restricted Galliformes? I don't have read Kimball et al (2021) and only have the graphical abstract to go on. I assume the annotations are misleadingly placed and they are not reporting a paraphyletic Megapodiidae.

 

[Jim LeNomenclatoriste]

Not sure I follow. Didn't they find Megapodiidae as first branching, which is consistent with a split between Megapodiiformes and a restricted Galliformes? I don't have read Kimball et al (2021) and only have the graphical abstract to go on. I assume the annotations are misleadingly placed and they are not reporting a paraphyletic Megapodiidae.

 

[Acanthis]

Oh yes!😃 Will need to spend a bit of time looking this over.
I'm liking Coccothraustinae. It's long been recognised that those birds in behavioural terms are not typical carduelines.
Also I might consider "Iodopleurinae" for the purpletufts, based on divergence age and also they appear very different from the tityras and becards.
Elanidae - almost as old a split as Pandionidae I believe.
Are you including Carpodacus and the Drepanidines in Pyrrhulinae?

 

[TomDerutter]

On this page https://www.bird-phylogeny.de/note-avian-orders/ the author has created an interesting tree based on a possible future phylogeny where a ordinal cutoff point of less than 52my old is used. Not sure why that time limit exactly.

Interesting indeed!

It seems a bit arbitrary to use 52 mya as cutoff point.
If you look at the geological scale, the boundary between Paleocene & Eocene is at 56 mya - surely this would be a better choice?

Obviously, the age of all these groups is still contested, so it's hard to make decisions on this for the moment.

 

[Acanthis]

Interesting indeed!

It seems a bit arbitrary to use 52 mya as cutoff point.
If you look at the geological scale, the boundary between Paleocene & Eocene is at 56 mya - surely this would be a better choice?

Obviously, the age of all these groups is still contested, so it's hard to make decisions on this for the moment.

To be honest I haven't spent much time reading up on this but yes I agree there's nothing cast in stone when it comes to divergence dates.
I'd love to know who the website owner is.

I think Jim may be 'sticking his head above the parapet' with his classification post. We'll see.
At the very least he has created a list of distinctive species groups - apply family, subfamily, tribe to each as you wish!

 

[Jim LeNomenclatoriste]

To be honest I haven't spent much time reading up on this but yes I agree there's nothing cast in stone when it comes to divergence dates.
I'd love to know who the website owner is.

I think Jim may be 'sticking his head above the parapet' with his classification post. We'll see.
At the very least he has created a list of distinctive species groups - apply family, subfamily, tribe to each as you wish!

The classification I use in my personal lists is traditional, at least at the order level, unlike the proposals above. However, for families, I allow myself some liberties.

 

[jts1882]

To be honest I haven't spent much time reading up on this but yes I agree there's nothing cast in stone when it comes to divergence dates.
I'd love to know who the website owner is.

I think Jim may be 'sticking his head above the parapet' with his classification post. We'll see.
At the very least he has created a list of distinctive species groups - apply family, subfamily, tribe to each as you wish!

Harald Fänger

Contact information

Graphics and fotos may be freely shared as long as their origin is clearly stated. Provision of additional high-resolution fotos of birds would be appreciated and acknowledged in the figure legends. Any comments that may help to improve this website are welcome.

www.bird-phylogeny.de

 

[Jim LeNomenclatoriste]

By consulting some figures, especially in Palaeognathae and Charadriiformes, I found several contradiction in divergence times

 

[Fred Ruhe]

It is interesting, hut I miss every fossil family, and they are also an significant group in de Cenozoic. Can you explain why you let them our?

Fred

 

[Mysticete]

The classification I use in my personal lists is traditional, at least at the order level, unlike the proposals above. However, for families, I allow myself some liberties.

Out of curiosity, what criteria do you for family versus subfamily ranking. I have my own classification but try to stick to things at least somewhat suggested by other studies, so it's more liberal than IOC, but more conservative than yours. It's interesting to see some groups I personally wouldn't recognize at family level, but then other groups I am on the fence on which you have subfamily recognition (I haven't done so, but I would lean more towards recognizing the different Laridae subfamilies at family level for instance).

 

[Mysticete]

Interesting indeed!

It seems a bit arbitrary to use 52 mya as cutoff point.
If you look at the geological scale, the boundary between Paleocene & Eocene is at 56 mya - surely this would be a better choice?

Obviously, the age of all these groups is still contested, so it's hard to make decisions on this for the moment.

55 or 56 would, from an evolution sense, make a bit more sense, since that is the time of the Paleocene-Eocene thermal maximum, which was a major period of faunal turnover.

 

[Jim LeNomenclatoriste]

Out of curiosity, what criteria do you for family versus subfamily ranking. I have my own classification but try to stick to things at least somewhat suggested by other studies, so it's more liberal than IOC, but more conservative than yours. It's interesting to see some groups I personally wouldn't recognize at family level, but then other groups I am on the fence on which you have subfamily recognition (I haven't done so, but I would lean more towards recognizing the different Laridae subfamilies at family level for instance).

My classification is quite traditionnal like I said, very different from the one above. It's varied, sometimes I follow the recommendations given by the authors (Herpetotheridae, Elanidae, Dendrocygnidae), or, I look at the average divergence time of somes lineages and I apply the same principle for other families. Sometimes it's totally arbitrary. When I see that a species is significantly distant and isolated geographically, genetically, from related species, I elevate the subfamily to the rank of subfamily (e.g. Pseudocalyptomeninae, which is the sole african member of the Eurylaimidae. I treat it as monotypic family, Pseudocalyptomenidae, or the two species of ''Poulette'' family Ptilopachidae, split from the neotropic Odontophoridae).

 

[TomDerutter]

but I would lean more towards recognizing the different Laridae subfamilies at family level for instance

When the situation with the Noddies & White Terns is clarified, I expect the big lists will recognize this as well
Takes forever though, is anyone even researching this?

 

[Jim LeNomenclatoriste]

Someone knows the divergence time between the Surniinae and the Striginae. The guy of the website estimate that around 30 mya, it's very deep

 

[Mysticete]

My classification is quite traditionnal like I said, very different from the one above. It's varied, sometimes I follow the recommendations given by the authors (Herpetotheridae, Elanidae, Dendrocygnidae), or, I look at the average divergence time of somes lineages and I apply the same principle for other families. Sometimes it's totally arbitrary. When I see that a species is significantly distant and isolated geographically, genetically, from related species, I elevate the subfamily to the rank of subfamily (e.g. Pseudocalyptomeninae, which is the sole african member of the Eurylaimidae. I treat it as monotypic family, Pseudocalyptomenidae, or the two species of ''Poulette'' family Ptilopachidae, split from the neotropic Odontophoridae).

I know Dendrocygnidae used to be recognized, but is there a new paper? I recently raised Elanidae to family rank in my own list, but Herpetotheridae got enough pushback from SACC that I have hesitated in doing so.

 

[Jim LeNomenclatoriste]

I know Dendrocygnidae used to be recognized, but is there a new paper? I recently raised Elanidae to family rank in my own list, but Herpetotheridae got enough pushback from SACC that I have hesitated in doing so.

Suggested by Sun & al. (2017)

(PDF) Rapid and recent diversification patterns in Anseriformes birds: Inferred from molecular phylogeny and diversification analyses

PDF | The Anseriformes is a well-known and widely distributed bird order, with more than 150 species in the world. This paper aims to revise the... | Find, read and cite all the research you need on ResearchGate

www.researchgate.net

 

[Acanthis]

I know Dendrocygnidae used to be recognized, but is there a new paper? I recently raised Elanidae to family rank in my own list, but Herpetotheridae got enough pushback from SACC that I have hesitated in doing so.

Is there a particular paper dealing with Elanidae specifically?
I'd noted the early divergence but hesitated to apply it to my own list without some justification in terms of biology, behaviour, morphology etc.