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Molecular systematics of the new world screech-owls (Megascops: Aves, Strigidae): biogeographic and taxonomic implications
Journal article   Open access   Peer reviewed

Molecular systematics of the new world screech-owls (Megascops: Aves, Strigidae): biogeographic and taxonomic implications

Sidnei M. Dantas, Jason D. Weckstein, John M. Bates, Niels K. Krabbe, Carlos Daniel Cadena, Mark B. Robbins, Eugenio Valderrama and Alexandre Aleixo
Molecular phylogenetics and evolution, v 94(Pt B), pp 626-634
Jan 2016
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ympev.2015.09.025
PMID: 26456003
Featured in Collection :   UN Sustainable Development Goals @ Drexel
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https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ympev.2015.09.025View
Published, Version of Record (VoR)Open Access (License Unspecified),  Open

Abstract

Amazonia Ancestral area reconstruction Andes Central America Diversification Neotropics
[Display omitted] •A phylogeny of the genus Megascops is proposed.•Megascops is not a monophyletic genus with respect to M. nudipes.•Several species probably include multiple cryptic species level taxa.•The genus probably originated in Central America, further spreading over North and South Americas. Megascops screech-owls are endemic to the New World and range from southern Canada to the southern cone of South America. The 22 currently recognized Megascops species occupy a wide range of habitats and elevations, from desert to humid montane forest, and from sea level to the Andean tree line. Species and subspecies diagnoses of Megascops are notoriously difficult due to subtle plumage differences among taxa with frequent plumage polymorphism. Using three mitochondrial and three nuclear genes we estimated a phylogeny for all but one Megascops species. Phylogenies were estimated with Maximum Likelihood and Bayesian Inference, and a Bayesian chronogram was reconstructed to assess the spatio-temporal context of Megascops diversification. Megascops was paraphyletic in the recovered tree topologies if the Puerto Rican endemic M. nudipes is included in the genus. However, the remaining taxa are monophyletic and form three major clades: (1) M. choliba, M. koepckeae, M. albogularis, M. clarkii, and M. trichopsis; (2) M. petersoni, M. marshalli, M. hoyi, M. ingens, and M. colombianus; and (3) M. asio, M. kennicottii, M. cooperi, M. barbarus, M. sanctaecatarinae, M. roboratus, M. watsonii, M. atricapilla, M. guatemalae, and M. vermiculatus. Megascops watsonii is paraphyletic with some individuals more closely related to M. atricapilla than to other members in that polytypic species. Also, allopatric populations of some other Megascops species were highly divergent, with levels of genetic differentiation greater than between some recognized species-pairs. Diversification within the genus is hypothesized to have taken place during the last 8 million years, with a likely origin in Central America. The genus later expanded over much of the Americas and then diversified via multiple dispersal events from the Andes into the Neotropical lowlands.

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Collaboration types
Domestic collaboration
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Web of Science research areas
Biochemistry & Molecular Biology
Evolutionary Biology
Genetics & Heredity
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