Department of Vertebrate Zoology, Swedish Museum of Natural History, Stockholm, Sweden.
PLoS One. 2011;6(9):e24317. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0024317. Epub 2011 Sep 9.
The New Zealand Thrush, or Piopio, is an extinct passerine that was endemic to New Zealand. It has often been placed in its own family (Turnagridae), unresolved relative to other passerines, but affinities with thrushes, Australaian magpies, manucodes, whistlers, birds-of-paradise and bowerbirds has been suggested based on morphological data. An affinity with the bowerbirds was also indicated in an early molecular study, but low statistical support make this association uncertain. In this study we use sequence data from three nuclear introns to examine the phylogenetic relationships of the piopios. All three genes independently indicate an oriole (Oriolidae) affinity of the piopios, and the monophyly of the typical orioles (Oriolus), figbirds (Sphecotheres), and the piopios is strongly supported in the Bayesian analysis of the concatenated data set (posterior probability = 1.0). The exact placement of the piopios within Oriolidae is, however, more uncertain but in the combined analysis and in two of the gene trees the piopios are placed basal to the typical orioles while the third gene suggest a sister relationship with the figbirds. This is the first time an oriole affinity has been proposed for the piopios. Divergence time estimates for the orioles suggest that the clade originated ca 20 million years ago, and based on these estimates it is evident that the piopios must have arrived on New Zealand by dispersal across the Tasman Sea and not as a result of vicariance when New Zealand separated from Gondwana in the late Cretaceous.
新西兰吸蜜鸟，又称 Piopio，是一种已灭绝的雀形目鸟类，仅分布于新西兰。它通常被归入自己的家族（Turnagridae），与其他雀形目鸟类的关系尚未解决，但基于形态学数据，有人认为它与画眉、澳洲喜鹊、鹤鸵、啸鹟、天堂鸟和园丁鸟有关。早期的分子研究也表明它与园丁鸟有亲缘关系，但由于统计支持度低，这种关联并不确定。在本研究中，我们使用三个核内含子的序列数据来研究吸蜜鸟的系统发育关系。这三个基因都独立地表明吸蜜鸟与黄鹂科（Oriolidae）有关，而典型黄鹂（Oriolus）、拟八哥（Sphecotheres）和吸蜜鸟的单系性在联合数据集的贝叶斯分析中得到了强有力的支持（后验概率=1.0）。然而，吸蜜鸟在黄鹂科中的确切位置仍然不太确定，但在联合分析和两个基因树中，吸蜜鸟位于典型黄鹂的基部，而第三个基因则表明它与拟八哥具有姐妹关系。这是首次有人提出吸蜜鸟与黄鹂科有亲缘关系。黄鹂科的分化时间估计表明，该类群起源于约 2000 万年前，根据这些估计，吸蜜鸟肯定是通过跨塔斯曼海的扩散而不是在晚白垩世新西兰与冈瓦纳大陆分离时的地理隔离到达新西兰的。
