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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Murray Lord" data-source="post: 2475752" data-attributes="member: 49730">The complex systematics of Acrocephalus of the Mariana Islands, western Pacific Takema Saitoh, Alice Cibois, Sayaka Kobayashi, Eric Pasquet, Jean Thibault  <a href="http://www.publish.csiro.au/view/journals/dsp_journals_pip_abstract_scholar1.cfm?nid=96&pip=MU12012" target="_blank">Emu, just accepted.</a>The Nightingale Reed-Warbler (Acrocephalus luscinius) was reported from six islands of the Mariana archipelago in the Pacific Ocean. A recent phylogeny of the reed-warblers of the Pacific islands suggested however that the species was polyphyletic, the result of at least three independent colonizations. We present here a complete phylogeny of the Mariana reed-warblers that includes two populations, from Alamagan and Aguiguan, not yet studied using molecular techniques. Both belong to the Pacific Acrocephalus radiation, and birds from Alamagan are closely related to the Saipan population, and those from Aguiguan having unresolved relationships within the Micronesian clade. These results suggest that the Mariana Islands experienced multiple colonizations by reed-warblers. We use the molecular phylogeny in combination with the biometry of museum specimens to propose a new species-level taxonomy for Acrocephalus of the Marianas. These results have conservation implications for the two remaining populations, on Alamagan and Saipan, which probably belong to the same taxon, A. hiwae.</blockquote>

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