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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Peter Kovalik" data-source="post: 3093070" data-attributes="member: 80630">Kieren J. Mitchell, Jamie Wood, Bastien Llamas, R. Paul Scofield, Alan Cooper, 2014. ANCIENT DNA REVEALS PRE-OLIGOCENE DIVERSIFICATION IN THE ACANTHISITTID WRENS (ACANTHISITTIDAE). In <a href="https://securepages.co.nz/~gsnz/siteadmin/uploaded/gs_downloads/Abstracts/GeogenesV.pdf" target="_blank">Crampton, J.S., Hills, S.F.K. (eds) 2014. ‘GeoGenes V’ Geology and Genes V 2014 – a meeting of mudstone and molecules, Geoscience Society of New Zealand Miscellaneous publication 138. 33p.</a>Abstract:It is well established that the Oligocene marine transgression drastically reduced the land area of New Zealand, with some suggestions of complete submergence. While geological evidence is largely equivocal on the extent of the inundation, biogeography remains a powerful tool for addressing this question. The most convincing biogeographic evidence against complete submergence would be the existence of multiple pre-Oligocene lineages in an endemic clade. However, very few native New Zealand taxa meet this criterion, as most appear to diversify well after the Oligocene, or are only represented by a single relict species. Still others are equivocal, having crown-age estimates with error margins extending either side of the putative submergence. The acanthisittid wrens, as one of the most diverse New Zealand bird families, offer a powerful test of this hypothesis that has not been fully explored. Molecular data were previously only available for three of the seven Recent species (five extinct, two extant): the rifleman (Acanthisitta chloris), rock wren (Xenicus gilviventris) and extinct bush wren (Xenicus longipes). We sequenced mitochondrial genomes of three extinct species (stout-legged wren, Pachyplichas yaldwyni; Stephen’s Island wren, Traversia lyalli; bush wren, Xenicus longipes) and the remaining extant species (rock wren, Xenicus gilviventris) using a combination of hybridisation enrichment and high throughput next-generation sequencing. Molecular dating demonstrates unequivocally that the lineage leading to the Stephen’s Island wren diverged from the common ancestor of Xenicus, Pachyplichas and Acanthisitta prior to the Oligocene. As a result, two wren lineages survived through the Oligocene period, providing compelling evidence against complete submergence, as the acanthisittids are ill suited to long-range, overwater dispersal. This finding also provides clues about Oligocene paleoecology, and the ecological characteristics of taxa that were successful during this period. Phylogenetic analyses further suggest that the two Xenicus species (the extant rock wren and extinct bush wren) are not monophyletic, and instead the extinct stout-legged wren and rock wren are sister taxa, indicating a need for taxonomic reassessment of the group.</blockquote>

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