How do seemingly non-vagile clades accomplish trans-marine dispersal? Trait and dispersal evolution in the landfowl (Aves: Galliformes)

Abstract

Dispersal ability is a key factor in determining insular distributions and island community composition, yet non-vagile terrestrial organisms widely occur on oceanic islands. The landfowl (pheasants, partridges, grouse, turkeys, quails and relatives) are generally poor dispersers, but the Old World quail (Coturnix) are a notable exception. These birds evolved small body sizes and high-aspectratio wing shapes, and hence are capable of trans-continental migrations and trans-oceanic colonization. Two monotypic partridge genera, Margaroperdix of Madagascar and Anurophasis of alpine New Guinea, may represent additional examples of trans-marine dispersal in landfowl, but their body size and wing shape are typical of poorly dispersive continental species. Here, we estimate historical relationships of quail and their relatives using phylogenomics, and infer body size and wing shape evolution in relation to trans-marine dispersal events. Our results show that Margaroperdix and Anurophasis are nested within the Coturnix quail, and are each 'island giants' that independently evolved from dispersive, Coturnix-like ancestral populations that colonized and were subsequently isolated on Madagascar and New Guinea. This evolutionary cycle of gain and loss of dispersal ability, coupled with extinction of dispersive taxa, can result in the false appearance that non-vagile taxa somehow underwent rare oceanic dispersal.

Reconciling supertramps, great speciators and relict species with the taxon cycle stages of a large island radiation (Aves: Campephagidae)

“…Evolutionary shifts in dispersal ability can occur rapidly (Slikas, Olson, & Fleischer, ) and P. erythrogaster dispersed and diversified rapidly within the Pleistocene (Irestedt et al., ), likely taking advantage of the greater connectivity of islands during much of the Pleistocene (Voris, ), but subsequently lost its ancestrally high dispersal ability and did not obtain secondary sympatry. This is reminiscent of the dispersal cycle described in, for example, Coturnix species (Hosner, Tobias, Braun, & Kimball, ). The high phylogenetic signal in HWI found in our study, does however, suggest that wing morphology is relatively conserved across species within the core Campephagidae.…”

A Phylogenomic Supertree of Birds

“…The much larger datasets that NGS can produce [36][37][38] have provided the first evidence for several superordinal avian clades [39]. Similar progress has been made for difficult nodes within orders: in these cases, sequence capture studies targeting ultraconserved element (UCE) loci have provided most of the data [40][41][42]. The successful use of UCE data in many studies (Table 1) suggests they could be the key to building a well-resolved avian phylogeny that includes all extant bird species.…”

“…Faircloth et al [55] NEORNITHES 9 2.5K UCE probe set McCormack et al [36] NEOAVES 33 YES 2.5K UCE probe set Baker et al [56] PALAEOGNATHAE 7 Subset of Faircloth et al [55] loci Jarvis et al [37] NEORNITHES 48 YES Whole genomes Sun et al [40] Phasianidae (peafowl) 15 5k UCE probe set Prum et al [38] NEORNITHES 197 YES AHE probe set Bryson et al [57] Passerellidae 30 YES 5k UCE probe set Hosner et al [58] Cracidae 23 5k UCE probe set Hosner et al [21] Phasianidae 90 5k UCE probe set Manthey et al [59] Piranga 11 YES 5k UCE probe set McCormack et al [22] Aphelocoma 1 (3) 5k UCE probe set Meiklejohn et al [60] Phasianidae (gallopheasants) 18 5k UCE probe set Ottenburghs et al [61] Anatidae-Anserini 19 YES Whole genomes Persons et al [62] Phasianidae (grouse) 11 5k UCE probe set Zarza et al [63] Aphelocoma 3 YES 5k UCE probe set Burga et al [64] Phalacrocorax 7 YES Whole genomes Hosner et al [42] Phasianidae 115 YES 5k UCE probe set Reddy et al [39] NEORNITHES 235 YES legacy with data mining Wang et al [65] Phasianidae 20 YES 5k UCE probe set White et al [66] Nyctibiidae 12 YES 5k UCE probe set Yonezawa et al [67] PALAEOGNATHAE YES legacy with data mining Andersen et al [68] Alcedinidae 21 YES 5k UCE probe set Bruxaux et al [69] Goura 6 YES Subset of UCE and AHE loci Campillo et al [70] Arachnothera 17 YES 5k UCE probe set Chen et al [71] Phasianidae 27 YES 5k UCE probe set Musher & Cracraft [72] Pachyramphus 18 YES 2.5K/5k UCE probe set Smith et al 2018 [73] Psittaculidae-Loriini 54 YES 5k UCE probe set Younger et al [74] Newtonia 4 YES 5k UCE probe set Sackton et al [75] PALAEOGNATHAE 15 YES Whole genomes 1 Redundant trees were omitted. 2 UCE (Ultraconserved Element) probe sets are described at https://www.…”

Whole genome phylogeny of Gallus: introgression and data-type effects

“…In addition to G. gallus, the genus Gallus has three additional species (Gill and Donsker 2019): Gallus lafayettii (Sri Lanka Junglefowl), G. sonneratii (Grey Junglefowl), and G. varius (Green Junglefowl). These species are relatively closely related, with the earliest divergence approximately 4-5 million years ago (Mya; Hosner et al 2017; Wang et al 2017). Males of these species all have combs and wattles, traits that are involved in sexual selection (Ligon et al 1998), although there are some differences among species in the plumage as well as the color and structure of the combs and wattles (Fig.…”