Systematics of a
Neotropical Diversification:
the Ovenbirds and
Woodcreepers (Furnariidae)
generously supported
by:
PIs
Robb T.
Brumfield, Ph.D., Museum of Natural Science, LSU
J. V.
Remsen, Ph.D, Museum of Natural Science, LSU
Alexandre
Aleixo, Ph.D., Museu Paraense Em’’lio Goeldi, BelŽm, Par‡, Brazil
Postdoctoral
Scientist
Elizabeth Derryberry,
Ph.D., Museum of Natural Science, LSU
Senior
Scientists
Jorge Luis PŽrez, Ph.D., Instituto de Zoologia Tropical, Universidad Central de Venezuela
Kristof Zyskowski, Ph.D., Peabody Museum of Natural History, Yale University
Other
Collaborators:
Terry Chesser, Ph.D.,
Smithsonian Institution
We are also coordinating our efforts with those of the two NSF-funded Tree of
Life projects whose goal is to reconstruct the deeper level branches of the
avian phylogeny (Class Aves):
Joel
Cracraft, Ph.D., American Museum of Natural History
Shannon
Hackett, Ph.D., Field Museum of Natural History
Rob Moyle,
Ph.D., University of Kansas Natural History Museum
Jose Tello, Ph.D., American Museum of Natural History
Graduate
Students:
Santiago
Claramunt, doctoral student, Louisiana State University
Project
Summary:
In his 1863
book "The Naturalist on the River Amazon", the great natural
historian Henry Walter Bates described a large mixed-species flock of birds and
marveled at the remarkable range of size in the furnariids he observed, from
those Òno larger than a sparrowÓ to others Òthe size of a crow running up the
tree trunks.Ó The variation in
body shape, feeding behavior, and nest architecture among furnariids is perhaps
the most remarkable of any Neotropical bird family. The furnariid radiation encompasses species that have
converged on the tree-climbing adaptations of woodpeckers, with other species
resembling wrens, jays, thrashers, thrushes, larks, and warblers. An additional exciting aspect of this
radiation is that the diversity is nearly all South American, with 97% of the
currently recognized species-level diversity entirely within South
America. There, furnariids have
invaded nearly all of the inhabitable regions, from the snow-line at over 5000
meters in the Andes down to the richest bird communities in the world in
lowland Amazonia. They are found
from perpetually wet cloud-forests to virtually rainless deserts. The prevalence of furnariids throughout
the Neotropical landscape makes them a particularly well-suited taxon to use as
a model system for investigating diversification patterns and processes at a
continental scale. Moreover, the
extensive morphological and behavioral diversity of the Furnariidae provides a
unique forum in which to address the tempo and mode of phenotypic
evolution. A first step in
understanding the evolutionary pressures that have propelled the furnariid
diversification is to understand exactly how its evolution proceeded. Thus, we are reconstructing a
comprehensive molecular phylogeny of all 326 species-level taxa, and using the
phylogeny as the foundation for a suite of morphological character analyses.
Taxon
Sampling:
The Genetic
Resources Collection at the Louisiana State University Museum of Natural
Science contains vouchered frozen tissues from over 67% (N = 219) of the 326 taxa to be
included in this project. We
assessed the holdings of other genetic resources collections that contain
frozen tissues of vouchered furnariid specimens.
These included the American Museum of Natural History (AMNH, New York),
the Cornell University Museum of Vertebrates (CUMV, Ithaca), the University of
Washington Burke Museum of Natural History (UWBM, Seattle), the Field Museum of
Natural History (FMNH, Chicago), the Kansas Museum of Natural History (KU,
Lawrence), the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute (STRI, Panama City,
Panama), the United States National Museum of Natural History (USNM,
Washington, D.C.), the Phelps Collection (Venezuela), the Museu de Zoologia
(S‹o Paulo, Brazil), the von Humboldt Institute (Palmira, Colombia), and the University of Alaska Museum
of Natural History (UA, Fairbanks).
Considering all holdings, samples are available from 88% (N = 287) of
the 326 species-level taxa.
Links