Xenospiza
Distracted
No, indeed.But under such a scenario, surely you wouldn't expect the western basal haplotypes to be identical to eastern basal haplotypes...?
No, indeed.But under such a scenario, surely you wouldn't expect the western basal haplotypes to be identical to eastern basal haplotypes...?
Unfortunately Dorf is just German for village. So it's presumably a village in Kurdistan - and therefore could theoretically be in Turkey, Iraq, Iran or Armenia (all partly within the range of armenicus), but perhaps now officially known by an alternative name used by the modern nation...?
Sounds plausible, Paul. But Şirvan/Şêrwan (in Siirt Province) is probably near the westernmost limit for armenicus. And I've belatedly noticed the account in Roselaar 1995 (Songbirds of Turkey)...With no evidence or justification whatever I'm going to drop an Arabic-sounding prefix, change some pronunciation a bit, and end up with Şirvan, a town in the Kurdish part of south-eastern Turkey.
S. t. armenica Stegmann, 1935, 'Adshafana, Kurdistan' (near the border of Iran, Iraq, and Turkey). ...
More likely to be written "Adjarana", I think. Or, if in Turkey, "Acarana"... (But I still don't find it.)That would be "Adzharana"...
Svensson, Shirihai, Frahnert & Dickinson 2012. Taxonomy and nomenclature of the Stonechat complex Saxicola torquatus sensu lato in the Caspian region. Bull BOC 132(4): 260–269.The type locality of variegatus is not Şamaxı, Azerbaijan but Bandar-e Anzali, Iran:
http://www.nm.cz/admin/files/PM/download/zivotopisy-publikace/mlikovsky261-2011-mlikovsky-gmelin.pdf
This is in armenicus range, so armenicus should be called variegatus, and the population now known as variegatus shloud be called amaliae according the link above.
SUMMARY.—We discuss the taxonomy of the Stonechat, the accepted broad species Saxicola torquatus, and find convincing reasons for recognising three species: European Stonechat S. rubicola, Eastern Stonechat S. maurus and African Stonechat S. torquatus. The nomenclature of the taxa breeding in the Caspian region is revisited and, based on an analysis of the original type descriptions and all relevant literature, and of four preserved specimens of Ehrenberg's taxon hemprichii from 1833 now in Berlin, we conclude that the name variegatus should not be applied to the taxon breeding north of the Caucasus but instead to the population in eastern Turkey and Transcaucasia, present-day armenicus. This places armenicus in the synonymy of variegatus, the latter having priority. Thirdly, a name is required for the north Caspian population. The name hemprichii is the oldest available and valid name for this population.
Svensson, Shirihai, Frahnert & Dickinson 2012. Taxonomy and nomenclature of the Stonechat complex Saxicola torquatus sensu lato in the Caspian region. Bull BOC 132(4): 260–269.
That's right, Alan. As background, the authors briefly acknowledge the recent genetic studies supporting a three-way split, and note that "the split is backed by consistent morphological differences and the fact that two of the three groups breed in partial sympatry apparently without interbreeding". But the paper is primarily concerned with nomenclature in the Caspian region.Is this a review of all evidence to date (including previous DNA work) or does it present any new DNA work? Given the length of the paper, I assume the former.
Svensson et al 2012 pdf posted on Surfbirds.Svensson, Shirihai, Frahnert & Dickinson 2012. Taxonomy and nomenclature of the Stonechat complex Saxicola torquatus sensu lato in the Caspian region. Bull BOC 132(4): 260–269.
Having studied the paper in more detail, one of the most interesting points is the considerable overlap between the breeding ranges of S rubicola and the Caspian taxa of S maurus depicted in Fig 1 – as also mooted in Kirwan et al 2008 (Birds of Turkey). This contrasts with Roselaar 1995 (Songbirds of Turkey), Urquhart & Bowley 2002 (Stonechats) and Porter & Aspinall 2010 (Birds of the Middle East), which all suggest essentially parapatric distributions.Svensson, Shirihai, Frahnert & Dickinson 2012. Taxonomy and nomenclature of the Stonechat complex Saxicola torquatus sensu lato in the Caspian region. Bull BOC 132(4): 260–269.
Illera, Richardson, Helm, Atienza & Emerson (in press). Corrigendum to "Phylogenetic relationships, biogeography and speciation in the avian genus Saxicola" [Mol. Phylogenet. Evol. 48 (2008) 1145–1154]. Mol Phylogenet Evol. [pdf]OTOH (and I don't really know what to do with this): one of the two "basal" Spanish cytb sequences in Illera et al. is clearly a chimera. EU421091: this seq is indicus-like (100% identical to their EU421081), up to a 'N' in position 744 of the entire cytb; the rest is a perfectly standard rubicola sequence (100% identical to their EU421090). (This seq also ends up at the end of an oddly long branch in their tree.)
This forum's astute Belgian detective!Well done by Laurent!
Salewski, Hochachka & Flinks (in press). Changes in Stonechat Saxicola torquata morphology: a response to climate change? J Ornithol. [abstract]
Salewski et al studied Saxicola (torquatus) rubicola in Nordrhein-Westfalen.This appears to be about Saxicola torquata sensu lato, although I note that Hochachka works at Cornell Ornithology Lab. Have Cornell not adopted the S. rubicola approach, restricting torquata largely to continental Africa?