Biodiversity Institute and Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, University of Kansas, Lawrence, KS 66045-7561, USA.
Syst Biol. 2012 Jul;61(4):631-51. doi: 10.1093/sysbio/sys027. Epub 2012 Feb 10.
The avian family Timaliidae is a species rich and morphologically diverse component of African and Asian tropical forests. The morphological diversity within the family has attracted interest from ecologists and evolutionary biologists, but systematists have long suspected that this diversity might also mislead taxonomy, and recent molecular phylogenetic work has supported this hypothesis. We produced and analyzed a data set of 6 genes and almost 300 individuals to assess the evolutionary history of the family. Although phylogenetic analysis required extensive adjustment of program settings, we ultimately produced a well-resolved phylogeny for the family. The resulting phylogeny provided strong support for major subclades within the family but extensive paraphyly of genera. Only 3 genera represented by more than 3 species were monophyletic. Biogeographic reconstruction indicated a mainland Asian origin for the family and most major clades. Colonization of Africa, Sundaland, and the Philippines occurred relatively late in the family's history and was mostly unidirectional. Several putative babbler genera, such as Robsonius, Malia, Leonardina, and Micromacronus are only distantly related to the Timaliidae.
伯劳鸟科是非洲和亚洲热带森林中物种丰富、形态多样的一个鸟类家族。该科的形态多样性引起了生态学家和进化生物学家的兴趣，但系统发育学家早就怀疑这种多样性也可能误导分类学，最近的分子系统发育研究也支持了这一假说。我们生成并分析了一个包含 6 个基因和近 300 个个体的数据组，以评估该家族的进化历史。虽然系统发育分析需要对程序设置进行广泛调整，但我们最终生成了一个该家族得到良好解决的系统发育树。该结果强烈支持了该家族的主要亚科，但广泛存在的并系现象。只有 3 个代表超过 3 个种的属是单系的。生物地理学重建表明，该家族和大多数主要分支起源于亚洲大陆。非洲、巽他陆架和菲律宾的殖民化发生在该家族历史的后期，且大多是单向的。几个假定的伯劳鸟属，如 Robsonius、Malia、Leonardina 和 Micromacronus，与伯劳鸟科的关系非常疏远。
