Title
The tempo of avian diversification during the Quaternary
Document Type
Article
Publication Date
2-2004
Publication Title
Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London, Series B
Publisher
The Royal Society of London
Volume
359
Issue
1442
First page number:
215
Last page number:
220
Abstract
It is generally assumed that the Quaternary was a period of heightened diversification in temperate vertebrate organisms. Previous molecular systematics studies have challenged this assertion. We re-examined this issue in north temperate birds using log-lineage plots and distributions of sister-taxon distances. Log-lineage plots support earlier conclusions that avian diversification slowed during the Quaternary. To test plots of empirical sister-taxon distances we simulated three sets of phylogenies: constant speciation and extinction, a pulse of recent speciation, and a pulse of recent extinction. Previous opinions favour the model of recent speciation although our empirical dataset on 74 avian comparisons failed to reject a distribution derived from the constant and extinction models. Hence, it does not appear that the Quaternary was a period of exceptional rates of diversification, relative to the background rate.
Keywords
Biodiversity; Diversification rates; Log-lineage plots; Paleobiogeography; Phylogeny; Quaternary; Sister taxa; Simulated phylogenies
Controlled Subject
Biodiversity; Phylogeography; Quaternary Geologic Period
Disciplines
Biodiversity | Evolution | Ornithology | Population Biology
Language
English
Permissions
Use Find in Your Library, contact the author, or use interlibrary loan to garner a copy of the article. Publisher copyright policy allows author to archive post-print (author’s final manuscript). When post-print is available or publisher policy changes, the article will be deposited.
Rights
IN COPYRIGHT. For more information about this rights statement, please visit http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/
Repository Citation
Zink, R. M.,
Klicka, J.,
Barber, B. R.
(2004).
The tempo of avian diversification during the Quaternary.
Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London, Series B, 359(1442),
215-220.
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