Estimates of reproductive success are essential to understand life-history strategies, yet tropical species remain understudied relative to their temperate counterparts. Here, we report nest survival probabilities for two manakin species (Pipridae). We monitored 61 wire-tailed manakin Pipra filicauda and 45 blue-crowned manakin Lepidothrix coronata nests during three breeding seasons. Both species suffered high nest failure (84%). We modeled the effects of year, nest height, nest age (for P. filicauda only), as well as nest manipulation on daily survival rates (DSR) using program MARK. DSR decreased with nest age in P. filicauda whereas a constant survival model was best fitted for L. coronata. Average DSR was 89% for P. filicauda and 85% for L. coronata. This study reports some of the lowest nest survival rates among tropical passerines and poses important questions about population maintenance.

Aim We reconstructed the biogeographical and evolutionary history of Saltator by producing a robust phylogenetic hypothesis that we used to evaluate the geographical origins of this genus, and assessed the potential influence of major Neotropical biogeographical features on the origin of lineages within this assemblage (i.e. phylogroups). Location Neotropics. Methods Our phylogenetic reconstruction is based on newly sequenced mitochondrial DNA data representing all known species of Saltator. This phylogenetic hypothesis was then used to define phylogenetic structure and to assess divergence times for these clades. Phylogroups were assigned to unique biogeographical regions allowing us (1) to perform ancestral biogeographical analyses (using rasp) to reconstruct ancestral areas for all nodes within our topology, and (2) to examine the geography of speciation and evolutionary history of Saltator. Results The novel phylogenetic relationships in Saltator showed that this tanager clade originated and diversified in South America in the mid‐Miocene (c. 13 Ma), ultimately yielding three distinct clades composed of a minimum of 26 phylogroups. A positive correlation was found between phylogenetic distance and co‐occurrence (percentage range overlap) for Saltator. Main conclusions Our evolutionary scenario for Saltator is consistent with a radiation initiated by uplift of the Andes during the last 10 million years. The biogeography of Saltator and the large number of phylogroups recovered suggest that an allopatric mode of speciation is the major driver in the evolutionary history of this group of tanagers.

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Over the past decade, the field of moleculargenetics has revolutionized our understanding ofavian mating systems, by demonstrating that socialbonds might not accurately reflect parentagebecause of unknown levels of cryptic mating(e.g., extra-pair copulations). Use ofmolecular genetics tools for paternity analysisrequires genetic material from putative parents andnestlings. Unfortunately, high nest predation ratesoften preclude detailed genetic studies of tropicaltaxa. Here, we describe a nondestructive methodthat increases the efficiency of obtaining geneticmaterial from offspring for a group of tropicalpasserines (Pipridae). The method entailsreplacing eggs with plaster replicas, incubatingeggs artificially, and returning hatchlings totheir original nests for further development. Thismethod greatly improved our ability to sampleoffspring, as we collected genetic material from100% of manipulated nests, compared to52% of unmanipulated nests.