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AOU-NACC Proposals 2009 (1 Viewer)

anyone want to place bets on which of these will be split and which will not

My guess is Pacific Wren will be a sure thing

Woodhouse's and Sumichrast Scrub-Jays I doubt will be split, since only one gene was sampled and the AOU prefers other data being brought into species proposals, i.e. playback experiments, hybridization studies, etc. The only way I think this split will be accepted is to accommodate the Island Scrub-Jay situation, and if it is split I think Woodhouse's may be split and Sumichrast will not be.

South Hills Crossbill could go either way. The evidence is good that they should be treated as a different species, even under BSC. I can see it not going through though on the reasoning that AOU might want to deal with the Crossbill situation all at once, and not piece meal. I think a lot of taxonomists are quite scared of dealing with Crossbill, and with good reason! I also wonder if this would go through how the ABA will treat it. Fea's and Zino's are currently treated as different species but the same "tick" based on difficulty to ID. I can see the Red Crossbills group being treated the same way.
 
One thing that these proposals (specifically the Trogon splits) bring to the forefront is the lack of logic in the geographical limits between NACC and SACC areas. My guess is that the least overlap in number of species would have been if the limit was set at the Mexican Isthmus of Tehuantepec instead of at the Panama-Colombia border (am I correct in thinking the latter is the current limit?

I would not be surpriced if Mysticete is correct in the guesses of which splits to accept. Reading the account yesterday, I would have felt that the arguments for Woodhouse's would be good enough, but of course, I don't have a vote ;)

If Woodhouse's is split but Sumichrast is not, which entety will the latter actually belong to? I have never seen this one, but brighter blue with hooked bill sounded more like californica?

Niels
 
Woodhouse's and Sumichrasts are sister taxa, so if not split completely sumichrasts would probably be included within Woodhouse's.

I actually have come to appreciate the cautious nature of AOU, especially compared to taxonomic bodies like CNAH (which covers NA herps). Sure it means splits take longer, but avoids a lot of the fickle genera assignment and splits that occur.

As far as AOU goes, yes it does cover Panama and everything north. I don't think you could really though find a smooth place to separate AOU and SACC. You are bound to have overlap somewhere. The AOU boundaries seem appropriate. Interestingly, there has been a lot of editorials and commentary about changing the ABA area (currently Canada, AK, and the lower 48 states), and expand them to include anywhere up to all of the current AOU area. No idea if this is just editorializing or something that they plan on having the next version of the checklist incorporate.
 
Mysticete said:
Interestingly, there has been a lot of editorials and commentary about changing the ABA area (currently Canada, AK, and the lower 48 states), and expand them to include anywhere up to all of the current AOU area. No idea if this is just editorializing or something that they plan on having the next version of the checklist incorporate.
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Michael Retter's discussion of possible wider ABA Area definitions in Birding 41/4 (Jul 2009) was thought-provoking. I've always considered the current ABA Area, excluding Greenland and Mexico, to be rather illogical. Presumably it was originally based on someone's idea of a relatively safe, mostly English-speaking subset of North America (apologies to Québec and St.-Pierre et Miquelon!). We would all learn much more about ornithology in Mexico (with a corresponding boost to conservation efforts) if most US/Canadian birders no longer believed that the world ended abruptly at the Rio Grande.

Of course, similar criticisms could be made of European birders and the BWP-based Western Palearctic boundaries. ;)

Richard
 
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well...the original definition of the ABA area was solely based on an arbitrary idea of what area coverage would be a realistic arena for competitive birding. Of course, what was realistic then really isn't realistic anymore. How many birders can afford to spend every spring in the Aleutians? or Gambell? Especially with Adak off bounds now (unless you can pony up 10,000 dollars for the occasional birding cruise).

I think ABA might as well expand to include Hawaii, Greenland, Bermuda, and Mexico. Makes biogeographical sense and would aid bird conservation in all those areas
 
When the ABA checklist was established in the 1960s, the AOU checklist covered Canada and the USA bar Hawaii. Greenland was excluded in the then-current fifth (1957) edition, and Hawaii, Bermuda, and Mexico (bar Baja California) had never been included in an AOU checklist. So the ABA boundaries make sense in that context. I don't have a problem with keeping them the way they are. I also don't have a problem with adding Hawaii, Greenland, and Bermuda.
 
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Mysticete said:
anyone want to place bets on which of these will be split and which will not

Woodhouse's and Sumichrast Scrub-Jays I doubt will be split, since only one gene was sampled and the AOU prefers other data being brought into species proposals, i.e. playback experiments, hybridization studies, etc. The only way I think this split will be accepted is to accommodate the Island Scrub-Jay situation, and if it is split I think Woodhouse's may be split and Sumichrast will not be.
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The proposed split of Western Scrub-Jay is discussed in the Sep 2009 issue of ABA's Birding:

Hess 2009. News and Notes: New Scrub-Jay Species? Birding 41(5): 29.
http://www.aba.org/birding/v41n5p28.pdf​

Richard
 
I am unable to open that pdf even from the ABA website - it seems to be corrupted (no problems opening the other pdfs in this issue). If anyone else has better luck, could you please summarize the points of the article?
 
I gave it a quick skimming through earlier, and my feeling is that it is a popular presentation of more or less the same info given in the PDF linked to in post 1.

Niels
 
The link still works for me. But as Niels says, it doesn't contain anything new - it's just ABA's news item reporting the recent proposal to NACC.

Richard
 
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will the splitting of the winter wren have any consequences for us old world birders?

I don't know this as fact, but I've always assumed that the winter wren would have colonised Eurasia via the Bering Sea. Therefore will our wren sspp be lumped with the pacific forms, or split outright. In which case, where would the split be?
 
jacana said:
will the splitting of the winter wren have any consequences for us old world birders?
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Probably not at this stage. The following paper suggested that the western North American form first diverged from eastern North American and Eurasian forms:

Drovetski et al 2004. Complex biogeographic history of a Holarctic passerine.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1691619/pdf/15129966.pdf​

The proposal to AOU is based upon a subsequent paper, which suggests that this divergence has resulted in separate species:

Toews & Irwin 2008. Cryptic speciation in a Holarctic passerine revealed by genetic and bioacoustic analyses.
http://www3.interscience.wiley.com/journal/120090385/abstract​

But see Drovetski et al for details of later divergences (which could yet be considered as potential species).

[And this earlier BF thread for further discussion:
http://www.birdforum.net/showthread.php?t=114503]

Richard
 
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The Old World forms are more closely related to the "Taiga Winter Wren".
I'd prefer a three way split (after the Aleutian forms would have been allocated).

I see Richard already provided the details!
 
Xenospiza said:
I'd prefer a three way split (after the Aleutian forms would have been allocated).
I agree, I realise it isn't as simple as this, but it seems strange to allocate a seperate species in the middle of another species (geographically speaking)and completely seperating the two populations.

A similar example is with the Quail Thrushes, where a similar looking species like cinnamonmeum Cinnamon Quail-Thrush seperates two distinct subspecies of the Chestnut-breasted Quail-Thrush.
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Click to expand...
 
I wonder if the ABA announcement means that the Scrub-Jay and Crossbill splits did not go through?

Wish they would just go ahead and post the next proposal and the tentative results of this one :)
 
Xenospiza said:
The Old World forms are more closely related to the "Taiga Winter Wren".
I'd prefer a three way split (after the Aleutian forms would have been allocated).

I see Richard already provided the details!
Click to expand...

One could also argue for a 4-way spit based on the grouping of subspecies in Clements that has the Aleutian ones in their own group separate from the Eurasian ones.
 
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