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This is it I guess

Yes, the link was quoted in Xenospiza's post. It's not a published work.

Based on a cursory look at it :
  • We are only really shown Bayesian results. In the text, we are told that : "All major clade nodes have 100% bootstrap support in the Bayesian consensus tree while the RAxML tree agrees on the major topology (Figure 3)." This gives no clear information whatsoever about how the "major topology" was supported by the ML analyses. The support given to the nodes uniting some of the "major clades" could perfectly be miserable.
  • The rooting of the tree depends entirely on the single Nycticorax that was used as outgroup. This taxon will be very much more distant from the ingroup than the taxa in the ingroup are from one another, which will make rooting difficult -- particularly as the inter-node distances are quite short (*).
(*) This seems to be the norm in closely-related taxa trees build from UCEs -- short internodes, long branches leading to the individual sample. This indicates much noise relative to actual signal. See also the recent Anas carolinensis / crecca UCE tree, for example.
 
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It's not an "article", though, it's an unpublished master thesis based on undisclosed and unverifiable data.
Or was it published recently ?
(If there is nothing more than this, I would certainly not be confident about the conclusions at this point.)
You know, I take his result at face value, I don't try to understand 😂
 
The committees also sometimes have access to information that we don't, including manuscripts that are in review. They may have acted upon this instead of rejecting a proposal to fix things and have to revisit in a year.
 
They should not. In such cases, they should wait until next year.
In my opinion the findings in that paper align perfectly with how I would expect the colonization of Butorides herons to have occured. They seem like very reasonable results, so perhaps that played a role too.
Over the years I've learned about so many supposedly forthcoming papers that still haven't been published that I prefer it if (possibly) not-perfect data is used than sticking to a status quo that's based on even less perfect data.
 
In my opinion the findings in that paper align perfectly with how I would expect the colonization of Butorides herons to have occured. They seem like very reasonable results, so perhaps that played a role too.
Over the years I've learned about so many supposedly forthcoming papers that still haven't been published that I prefer it if (possibly) not-perfect data is used than sticking to a status quo that's based on even less perfect data.

Well, the mitochondrial data conflict with this tree, and are very strongly supported.
Sometimes mitochondrial data don't tell the truth, but this cannot be treated as being the rule -- I would need a really good reason to accept that this is the case here. I don't see anything justifying this for now.
 
Well, the mitochondrial data conflict with this tree, and are very strongly supported.
Sometimes mitochondrial data don't tell the truth, but this cannot be treated as being the rule -- I would need a really good reason to accept that this is the case here. I don't see anything justifying this for now.
Both trees support a split of Little Heron from Striated, even if they look different in detail.
Furthermore, it seems rather obvious to me that Old World and New World taxa don't interbreed with one another, so that species status could be granted to Little Heron even without referencing that paper.
 
Jan 14 Split Eastern Rockhopper Penguin from Western (Southern) Rockhopper Penguin.

"Eastern Rockhopper Penguin Eudyptes filholi is split from Western Rockhopper Penguin E. chrysocome based on integrative taxonomy including genetic and morphological differences (Frugone et al. 2021; WGAC 709)."
 
Another bonus split unlinked to harmonisation of the 3 checklists? Might take a while to complete this process, since gusasp first posted his list only about 25% of the flagged changes have been done
Cheers
James
 
I think some of these bonus splits are not as bonus as they appear, but rather that result of looking at conflicts between checklists and resolving them through additional splits not performed by other checklists. IIRC, Birdlife I don't think recognized the Green vs Striated Heron split, and I know there has also been differences in how Rockhopper Penguins were split between lists.
 
I think some of these bonus splits are not as bonus as they appear, but rather that result of looking at conflicts between checklists and resolving them through additional splits not performed by other checklists. IIRC, Birdlife I don't think recognized the Green vs Striated Heron split, and I know there has also been differences in how Rockhopper Penguins were split between lists.
that's correct for Butorides herons, the various lists recognise 1,2 and 3 species respectively, looks like they have got together and decided that the correct number is......... 4!

but for the rockhoppers current treatment (prior to today) is identical across the 3 lists i think?

cheers,
James
 
that's correct for Butorides herons, the various lists recognise 1,2 and 3 species respectively, looks like they have got together and decided that the correct number is......... 4!

but for the rockhoppers current treatment (prior to today) is identical across the 3 lists i think?

cheers,
James
Well at least the three new splits for my list in 2025 will partially compensate for all the losses of late 2024
 
English name change (not a split or a taxonomic change):

Change English name of Urodynamis taitensis from Pacific Long-tailed Cuckoo to Long-tailed Koel to align with other major world bird lists.
 
English name change (not a split or a taxonomic change):

Change English name of Urodynamis taitensis from Pacific Long-tailed Cuckoo to Long-tailed Koel to align with other major world bird lists.
Some other ones too:

Change English name of Orthotomus castaneiceps from Philippine Tailorbird to the more precise Visayan Tailorbird to align with Clements.

Change English name of Orthotomus chloronotus from Trilling Tailorbird to Green-backed Tailorbird to align with Clements and BLI/HBW.

Change English names of all species within Heleia from "White-eye" to "Heleia" to align with Clements and Eaton et al. (2021).
 

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