Proposal (863) to South American Classification Committee

Revise (A) generic classification and (B) linear sequence of Lipaugus and Tijuca

Background: The current SACC list (Remsen et al. 2020) comprises seven species of Lipaugus and two of Tijuca, as follows:

Lipaugus weberi Chestnut-capped Piha

Lipaugus fuscocinereus Dusky Piha

Lipaugus uropygialis Scimitar-winged Piha

Lipaugus unirufus Rufous Piha

Lipaugus vociferans Screaming Piha

Lipaugus lanioides Cinnamon-vented Piha

Lipaugus streptophorus Rose-collared Piha

Tijuca atra Black-and-gold Cotinga

Tijuca condita Gray-winged Cotinga

The original description of Tijuca atra Ferussac, 1829 provided no information on presumed relationships. However, in the original description of Tijuca condita, Snow (1980) placed the new species in this genus based on its overall similarity with the female of T. atra, which led it to being overlooked in a museum drawer for some three decades. Snow also noted similarities in plumage of T. condita and breeding biology of T. atra with some species of Lipaugus. Electrophoresis of feather proteins carried out by A. Knox also showed that both species of Tijuca had greater similarity values to Lipaugus vociferans than to Carpornis cucullatus, suggesting a relationship between Tijuca and Lipaugus (Snow 1980), but also that the two species of Tijuca did not have especially high similarity values to each other.

New information: Ohlson et al. (2007) recovered Tijuca atra as part of a polytomy with Lipaugus unirufus and L. fuscocinereus. Berv and Prum (2014) sampled six species of Lipaugus (not including L. weberi) and Tijuca atra, and, using Sanger sequencing, found (with weak support) that Tijuca atra was embedded within Lipaugus and sister to L. lanioides. Most recently, Settlecowski et al. (2020), using Sanger sequencing and sequence capture of 2069 loci, greatly increased genomic and taxon sampling (with complete taxon sampling for the Lipaugus-Tijuca clade, including L. weberi and T. condita). Settlecowski et al. (2020) confirmed, with strong support, that Tijuca atra is embedded within Lipaugus, but did not recover a T. atra + L. lanioides clade (see screenshot below). They also found no evidence for a Tijuca clade, as T. atra is sister to a clade comprising T. condita and the remaining three species of Lipaugus. Notably, several species of Lipaugus (unirufus, streptophorus, vociferans, and lanioides) are basal to the two species of Tijuca (Settlecowski et al. 2020).

Fig. 2d from Settlecowski et al. (2020).

The oldest divergence in the entire clade is that between L. unirufus and all Lipaugus and Tijuca, at about 12 myr, but the next oldest divergence is not much younger (about 10 myr) and all are > 5 myr. Therefore, recognition of the single genus Lipaugus Boie, 1828, of which L. vociferans is the type species (Zoonomen) seems the best treatment. Should multiple genera be preferred such that Tijuca continues to be recognized, multiple available or new genera would have to be resurrected or described, and even then T. atra and T. condita do not form a monophyletic clade. This change has already been enacted by del Hoyo and Collar (2016), based on Berv and Prum (2014).

Recommendation:

I strongly recommend that (A) Tijuca be subsumed within Lipaugus and (B) the linear sequence of Lipaugus be altered to follow the topology of Fig. 2d in Settlecowski et al. (2020):

Lipaugus unirufus Rufous Piha

Lipaugus streptophorus Rose-collared Piha

Lipaugus vociferans Screaming Piha

Lipaugus lanioides Cinnamon-vented Piha

Lipaugus ater Black-and-gold Cotinga

Lipaugus conditus Gray-winged Cotinga

Lipaugus weberi Chestnut-capped Piha

Lipaugus fuscocinereus Dusky Piha

Lipaugus uropygialis Scimitar-winged Piha

Please vote YES or NO on both (A) and (B).

Literature Cited

Berv, J. S., and R. O. Prum. (2014). A comprehensive multilocus phylogeny of the Neotropical cotingas (Cotingidae, Aves) with a comparative evolutionary analysis of breeding system and plumage dimorphism and a revised phylogenetic classification. Molecular Phylogenetics and Evolution 81:120–136.

del Hoyo, J., and N. J. Collar (2016). HBW and BirdLife International Illustrated Checklist of the Birds of the World. Volume 2: Passerines. Lynx Edicions, Barcelona.

Ohlson, J. I., R. O. Prum, and P. G. P. Ericson (2007). A molecular phylogeny of the cotingas (Aves: Cotingidae). Molecular Phylogenetics and Evolution 42: 25–37.

Remsen, J. V., Jr., J. I. Areta, C. D. Cadena, S. Claramunt, A. Jaramillo, J. F. Pacheco, J. Perez Emán, M. B. Robbins, F. G. Stiles, D. F. Stotz, and K. J. Zimmer (Version 11 February 2020). A classification of the bird species of South America. American Ornithological Society. http://www.museum.lsu.edu/~Remsen/SACCBaseline.htm

Settlecowski, A. E., A. M. Cuervo, J. G. Tello, M. G. Harvey, R. T. Brumfield, and E. P. Derryberry (2020). Investigating the utility of traditional and genomic multi-locus datasets to resolve relationships in Lipaugus and Tijuca (Cotingidae). Molecular Phylogenetics and Evolution 147:106779.

Snow, D. W. (1980). A new species of cotinga from south-east Brazil. Bulletin of the British Ornithologists’ Club 100: 213–215.

Zoonomen Nomenclatural Data (2013). Alan P. Peterson http://www.zoonomen.net, accessed 12 July 2020.

Pamela C. Rasmussen, July 2020

Comments from Remsen. “A. YES. Solid data, and this change is overdue. B. YES – sequence change mandated by new genetic data.”

Comments from Areta: “YES. The pectinate shape of the tree makes the other options discussed by Settlecowski et al. (2020) more difficult to accommodate, at least on present knowledge. So a broadly defined (and rather "old") Lipaugus seems the way to go.”

Comments from Bonaccorso: “YES. The phylogenetic evidence strongly supports that Tijuca be subsumed within Lipaugus.”

Comments from Pacheco: “YES to A and B. The data now available corroborate these decisions.”