Phylogeny and evolution of the European Goldfinch (Carduelis carduelis) and its allies – a review of the “bird of the year”

Abstract

Phylogeny and evolution of the European Goldfinch (Carduelis carduelis) and its alliesa review of the "bird of the year" Jenő Nagy Nagy, J. 2017. Phylogeny and evolution of the European Goldfinch (Carduelis carduelis) and its allies -a review of the "bird of the year". -Ornis Hungarica 25(2): 1-10. DOI: 10.1515DOI: 10. / orhu-2017 Abstract In 2017 the European Goldfinch (Carduelis carduelis) was voted to be the "bird of the year" in Hungary. This is a partially migrant species; most of the European populations are resident, however, its breeding range extends to East from the Sweden-Poland-Moldova axis towards the Yenisei with some of the populations wintering in Kazakhstan and South of Turkey. The European Goldfinch is classified within the Carduelinae subfamily including approximately a hundred species. Several taxonomic changes were introduced in this group during the last fifteen years, however, we still do not understand much of their origin and evolutionary history. My aim in this paper is to collect existing knowledge on the phylogeny and evolution of the Carduelinae finches and their allies, with a particular focus on the European Goldfinch and its closest relatives. Furthermore, here I point out uncertainties in different phylogenetic sources of finches, which careful consideration can be useful in similar evolutionary studies. Finally, I summarise some vision for future research.Keywords: Carduelinae, finches, Fringillidae, evolution, phylogeny, taxonomy Összefoglalás 2017-ben a tengelic (Carduelis carduelis) nyerte el az "év madara" címet Magyarországon. Egy részlegesen vonuló fajról van szó, melynek európai populációi jórészt egész évben megfigyelhetők, azonban költőterülete a Svédország-Lengyelország-Moldova vonaltól keletre, egészen Ázsia középső részéig kiterjed. Néhány populáció Kazahsztánban és Törökországtól délre telel. A tengelic a Carduelinae alcsaládba tartozik, mely közel száz fajt foglal magába. Számos taxonómiai változás történt a csoportban az elmúlt tizenöt évben, azonban fejlődéstörténetükről és eredetükről mégis keveset tudunk. Jelen tanulmányban megpróbálom össze-foglalni a Carduelinae pintyek filogenetikájáról és evolúciójáról megszerzett tudásunkat, különös tekintettel a tengelicre és rokonaira. Továbbá szeretném felhívni a figyelmet a különböző forrásokban fellelhető filogenetikai bizonytalanságokra, melyek áttekintése más, hasonló tanulmányok kidolgozása esetében is hasznosak lehetnek. Végezetül összefoglalom a már említett taxonómiai változásokat és a lehetséges kutatási irányokat.

Phylogeny, migration and life history: filling the gaps in the origin and biogeography of the Turdus thrushes

“…Nevertheless, a Central or South American origin is supported for the Catharus (Outlaw et al 2003), which is in line with our results. Moreover, the highest uncertainties were found in the large clade containing mainly Neotropical and Afrotropical species, which may be due to either the under-representation of genetic information for these species or the frequent mixing between the populations on both sides of the Atlantic Ocean that resulted in infering histories of the studied gene sequences (Reddy et al 2017;Nagy 2017). Therefore, these contradictory patterns call for the re-analysis of the biogeographic history of the Turdidae after a deep taxonomic revision, as suggested in the Introduction.…”

“…Available genes per species are summarised in Table S2. However, it is important to note that interpretation of phylogenies may differ depending on the data type used (Reddy et al 2017;Nagy 2017), hence the support of some nodes in relation to the genetically under-represented species may be lower. Sequence alignment was done using MAFFT (Katoh et al 2005) and cleaned with Gblocks (Castresana 2000).…”

Biologia Futura: rapid diversification and behavioural adaptation of birds in response to Oligocene–Miocene climatic conditions

“…The different evolutionary histories of the different genes could have affected the phylogenetic hypotheses (e.g. Reddy et al 2017;Nagy 2017). Further research involving the entire family and the comparison of different phylogenetic and biogeographic hypotheses is still needed because it would help clarify the origin, pattern of radiation and the association with migratory behaviour in the family (Nagy 2019 and the references therein).…”