Eurylaimides (1 Viewer)

Hi all,

In Boyd's site
http://jboyd.net/Taxo/List13.html#calyptomenidae

I read

"The main split among the Eurylaimides is between the pittas and the rest. Moyle et al. found that the broadbills were not a natural grouping. Some are more closely related to the Sapayoa and the asities than they are to the other broadbills. This list considers the broadbills to consist of two families, one of them sister to the asities, the other sister to the rest of the broadbills, asities, and Sapayoa. In contrast, the SACC treats all of the broadbills, including the asities and sapayoa, as one family, Eurylaimidae."


SACC (1 family) & Boyd (5 families) have chosen quite different extremes. Can you tell me what are the arguments in favour of one of those choices?

Is there one "conservative" way and another more likely, or are they just two different interpretations and acceptable ways of describing what we know?

Thanks for your help

I think SACC took a conservative approach, since the Sapayoa is the only new world member of the group. From what I heard, they are waiting to see how old world authorities treat the broadbills and such, before they act. They didn't want to propose a radical revision of a group that really isn't part of their jurisdiction. I suspect they will be split up and SACC will then consider them a monotypic family

The appropriate SACC proposal and discussion.

Niels

Hi all

That Sapayoa is nested within the traditional broadbills struck me as one of the most bizarre bio-geographic revalations of recent times. Can someone explain (in layman's terms!) whether this conclusion is well supported and if there are a number of studies which reach the same conclusion?

Thanks, alan

Hi all,

thanks... but previous answers don't really reply to my question.

boyd says ":Moyle et al. found that the broadbills were not a natural grouping."

So, according to you or any more references you can get, is it just a matter of time than all the Eurylaimidae will be splitted in 4-5 families (Asities, Calyptomenidae, Sapayoidae)? Or do you think a single family can be a kind of final arrangment despite today's broadbills are NOT a a natural grouping?

Thanks

Valéry Schollaert said:

Hi all,

thanks... but previous answers don't really reply to my question.

boyd says ":Moyle et al. found that the broadbills were not a natural grouping."

So, according to you or any more references you can get, is it just a matter of time than all the Eurylaimidae will be splitted in 4-5 families (Asities, Calyptomenidae, Sapayoidae)? Or do you think a single family can be a kind of final arrangment despite today's broadbills are NOT a a natural grouping?

Thanks

Click to expand...

The way I read the SACC comments, they seem think that most likely the current broadbill will be split into several families. However, to my mind, there is a possibility that someone will prefer to lump whatever into the broadbills until it becomes a monophyletic grouping, just like Turdus is kept as a grouping when recent DNA data could be interpreted as saying Turdus should be split into about 4 units (this last written from memory, so don't hang me if the number is wrong).

Niels

What Niels said

Really...there is no real set definition on what is or isn't a family. It's an arbitrary term used to bring order to classification. I think they should be split given the deep divergences, but you could also equally argue that keeping them as one family highlights their relatedness...

Hi Mysticete,

OK, so according to you "they just two different interpretations and acceptable ways of describing what we know"

It's chat I thought. and why I can't really chose what to do in my list for that case. I think I feel more confident splitting families all grouped in a superfamily.

Thanks very much

It would be interesting to compare the "internal" divergences of trogons (always treated as one family), barbets & toucans (2* to 4) and broadbills (1 to 5), which all have a pantropical "Old World" distribution.

* Basically because toucans are not usually included in barbets – otherwise it could be 1.

Ho yes! But there is also another point.

Splitting trogons in, let's say, 3 families wouldn't give much information as long as we would have one of each continent. It changes nothing about reltionship between trogons and sympatric families; and they are obviously close relatives (would close families).

Broadbill case is very exciting. If we keep one family, it shows clearly the strange origin of the Sapayoa; almost every would know it's the odd broadbill that reached South America. If we split the families, in a few years, while Sapayo would have a usual monotypic family position, the strange origin can be forgotten by most.

As Donacobius: we know it's a monotypic family, but few knows that it is (probably?) an "African Warbler" is some ways. If it would be classified in Cisticolidae, every one would have the info...

Toucan / barbet case is also interesting. Yes, one single family is really an interesting possibility. Personnally I prefer the split in 5 (toucans, toucan-barbets, American barbets, African barbets, Asian barbets) but probably just because I know most of them well and "feel" it better.

Cheers,

Don Roberson's site has a good short summary of the situation:

28 Prum (1993) concluded, on the basis of syringeal and osteological characters, that the Asities were embedded within the Broadbill clade and merged them together, but this was challenged on DNA sequence data by Irestedt et al. (2001). That study lacked, however, some broadbill genera. HBW took the more conservative and traditional approach in maintaining the Asities as a family.
Moyle et al. (2006a) provided the necessary new research to sort this all out. They showed that there were two major clades within the Broadbills — (1) a grouping of the Calyptomenna broadbills of Asia (these are the green broadbills) and the Smithornis broadbills of Africa (these are the lowland forest broadbills in Africa), and (2) a grouping of the remaining Asian broadbills (5 genera) plus Grauer's Broadbill Pseudocalyptomena graueri (a montane species which is an Albertine Rift endemic), plus Asities in Madagascar and the Sapayoa of the New World (see note 29). The Broadbills as a traditional family are only monophyletic if one considers Asities and Sapayoa to be broadbills. The situation is comparable to the barbet/toucan conundrum in which the options are either to lump all toucans/barbets together or separate them into 5 families, including elevating Toucan-Barbet to family status. The SACC chose the batter option with the barbet/toucan assemblage.
The DNA evidence in the broadbills best supports (in my view) creating two families of broadbills — the Calyptomenid Broadbills [genera Calyptomena and Smithornis] and the Eurylaimid Broadbills [all other genera, including Pseudocalyptomena] — and retaining the Asities and the Sapayoa as separate families. No authoritative source yet does this, though, so this is quite tentative.

29 Lanyon (1985) and Sibley & Monroe (1990) found biochemical evidence that Sapayoa Sapayoa aenigma was related to Old World suboscines, and may be the only relict of an ancient lineage left in the Neotropics. Both SACC and Dickinson (2003) consider it a monotypic family. AOU (1998) relegated it to incertae sedis (=unknown taxonomic position), awaiting more evidence. That new evidence is now available in Moyle et al. (2006); see note 28.

Valéry Schollaert said:

Ho yes! But there is also another point.

Splitting trogons in, let's say, 3 families wouldn't give much information as long as we would have one of each continent. It changes nothing about reltionship between trogons and sympatric families; and they are obviously close relatives (would close families).

Broadbill case is very exciting. If we keep one family, it shows clearly the strange origin of the Sapayoa; almost every would know it's the odd broadbill that reached South America. If we split the families, in a few years, while Sapayo would have a usual monotypic family position, the strange origin can be forgotten by most.

As Donacobius: we know it's a monotypic family, but few knows that it is (probably?) an "African Warbler" is some ways. If it would be classified in Cisticolidae, every one would have the info...

Toucan / barbet case is also interesting. Yes, one single family is really an interesting possibility. Personnally I prefer the split in 5 (toucans, toucan-barbets, American barbets, African barbets, Asian barbets) but probably just because I know most of them well and "feel" it better.

Click to expand...

I sort-of agree (can't comment to much on the barbets s. l. as I've only seen a few scattered species), but I would be really interested in the estimated moment of divergence.
The Donacobius might be a "lucky straggler", while the others all appear to be Gondwanan landbirds to me... so no reason to treat any of them in a diffreent way? Wouldn't mind to be proven wrong though!

TiF Update December 10
Eurylaimides: The families in Eurylaimides have been reordered based on Prum et al. (2015). Futher, based on their time-scaled, I've separated Smithornithidae from Calyptomenidae.

Sapayoa

Dzielski, Van Doren, Hruska & Hite 2016. Reproductive biology of the Sapayoa (Sapayoa aenigma), the "Old World suboscine" of the New World. Auk 133(3): 347–363. [abstract] [pdf]

AOU/COS Publications Blog, 27 Apr 2016: An Old World Bird in a New World Rainforest.

Cornell Lab of O: All About Birds, 27 Apr 2016: Field Study Helps Confirm the Sapayoa Is Like No Other Bird in the New World.

Nate Swick, aba blog, 28 Apr 2016: Old World Birds in the New World Tropics.

An African origin of the Eurylaimides (Passeriformes) and the successful diversification of the ground-foraging pittas (Pittidae)

http://mbe.oxfordjournals.org/content/early/2016/11/11/molbev.msw250.abstract?papetoc

Ben Wielstra said:

An African origin of the Eurylaimides (Passeriformes) and the successful diversification of the ground-foraging pittas (Pittidae)

http://mbe.oxfordjournals.org/content/early/2016/11/11/molbev.msw250.abstract?papetoc

Click to expand...

Alexandre Pedro Selvatti, Ana Galvão, Anieli Guirro Pereira, Luiz Pedreira Gonzaga, and Claudia Augusta de Moraes Russo. An African origin of the Eurylaimides (Passeriformes) and the successful diversification of the ground-foraging pittas (Pittidae). Mol Biol Evol first published online November 14, 2016 doi:10.1093/molbev/msw250

:t::t::t:

TiF Update December 9, 2016:

Eurylaimides: I have adjusted the order of the Eurylaimides based on Selvatti et al. (2016). The Sapayoa is now the basal branch. Smithornithidae has been rearranged and I've added subfamilies to Philepittidae and Eurylaimidae.

Sapayoa

IOC Updates Diary July 25

Treat Sapayoa as a monotypic family, basal to rest of Eurylaimides

Peter Kovalik said:

IOC Updates Diary July 25

Treat Sapayoa as a monotypic family, basal to rest of Eurylaimides

Click to expand...

Yes, finally! Hope they separate the Calyptomenids as well, Selwatti which IOC cites endorses it, as well as a few others. Smithornis seems as old a split as the asities, so I hope they elevate them to family as well.

As to English names, it's certainly a headache. "Calyptomenid broadbills" is as ghastly as the HBW solution "African and Green Broadbills" is wrong: Grauer's Broadbill is both African and green too. How about Emerald Broadbills for Calyptomena, Striped Broadbills for Smithornis and "Typical Broadbills" for the rest?

IOC Updates Diary April 23

Separate Family Philepittidae from Eurylaimidae

Separate Family Calyptomenidae from Eurylaimidae