In particular, though, is there anything anyone can add on the status of albivitta in Ecuador? As I point out, Puebla-Olivares et al. (2008) appear to sample albivitta in Ecuador and their phylogeny has them mixed in with the blue and black-throated toucanets of the southern Andes clades, and not the other white-throated albivitta populations in Colombia. This is a very strange result that they do not discuss in the paper.
Interesting. I received the paper recently, but haven't had the time to read it yet (and it'll be some time before I do). The taxon
albivitta is uncommon, but regular and not really that difficult to find, in the eastern Andes of northern Ecuador. The same applies to
cyanolaemus in the south of that country. So, basically, Ridgely & Greenfield got it right in Birds of Ecuador, and so did Restall
et al. in Birds of Northern South America. This, of course, is based on appearance, and if the north-east Ecuadorian population really is part of the same clade as
albivitta in Colombia and Venezuela is an entirely different issue, though I, based on zoogeography, would be very surprised if north-east Ecuadorian individuals and individuals from adjacent Colombia were part of different clades, as it just doesn't match the pattern shown in other taxa in the region, or what is known about past and present barriers. It too is no real surprise that the map you made based on the field guides is pretty accurate, while the maps in the papers are not. Not really comments to the issues of variations or species limits, but your intro with distributions on the various South American taxa is rather inaccurate. For better, see
worldbirdinfo. E.g. it is incorrect that
dimidiatus is found south of
atrogularis; rather, the latter is found along the east slope of the Andes, while the former, as also evident by the big distribution "block" in south-eastern Peru and adjacent Brazil and Bolivia, is found in hills and lowlands just east (in Peru) or north (in Bolivia) of the Andes. Comparably, the situation in Colombia is a bit more complex, with
albivitta on both slopes of the East Andes and east slope of the Central Andes,
griseigularis on the west slope of the Central Andes and both slopes of the northern West Andes, and
phaeolaemus only on the west slope of the southern West Andes. Also, just to avoid further confusion, you might want to correct the following figure (a bit more than half way down part II):
... a gray-throated bird with reduced yellow on the bill, makes up about
70% of Eastern Andes birds sampled and appearing in no other population...
to
... a gray-throated bird with reduced yellow on the bill, makes up about
80% of Eastern Andes birds sampled and appearing in no other population...
(I haven't checked the numbers in the paper itself, but you indicate 80% on the figure you made)
I have seen quite a lot of
albivitta in Ecuador and Venezuela, though only a handful or so in Colombia. Unless there's a lot of grey-throated individuals somewhere in the last of these countries (which of course is entirely possible), they generally have white throats. That said, I'm a bit hesitant when commenting on this, considering that the grey/bluish edge to the throat, while generally present, typically is very pale (sometimes almost white), and only really visible when getting very good views. So, if that's the colour they refer to when saying the throat is grey, it is so pale that it would be easy to miss in the field, instead just calling it white. Even
lautus can appear virtually white-throated unless seen well.
