<I>PASSERINA</I> BUNTING RELATIONSHIPS
Total Page:16
File Type:pdf, Size:1020Kb
The Auk 118(3):611-623, 2001 A CYTOCHROME-b PERSPECTIVE ON PASSERINA BUNTING RELATIONSHIPS JOHN KLICKA,L3 ADAM J. FRY,TM ROBERT M. ZINK, • AND CHRISTOPHERW. THOMPSON2,5 •J.E BellMuseum of NaturalHistory, University of Minnesota, 1987 UpperBuford Circle, St. Paul,Minnesota 55108, USA; and 2BurkeMuseum and Department of ZoologyDB-10, University of Washington,Seattle, Washington98195, USA ABSTRACT.--Wesequenced the completemitochondrial cytochrome-b gene (1,143 nucle- otides)for representativesof eachspecies in thecardinalid genera Passerina (6 species),Guir- aca(1 species),and Cyanocompsa(3 species), and useda variety of phylogeneticmethods to addressrelationships within and amonggenera. We determinedthat Passerina,as presently recognized,is paraphyletic.Lazuli Bunting(P. amoena) is sisterto the muchlarger Blue Gros- beak (Guiracacaerulea). Indigo Bunting(P. cyanea) and Lazuli Buntingare not sistertaxa as generallythought. In all weightedparsimony trees and for the gamma-correctedHKY tree, Indigo Buntingis the sisterof two sistergroups, a "blue" (Lazuli Buntingand Blue Gros- beak)and a "painted" (Rosita'sBunting [P. rositae], Orange-breasted Bunting [P. leclancherii], VariedBunting [P. versicolor], and Painted Bunting [P. ciris]) clade. The latter two speciesform a highly supportedsister pair of relativelymore recent origin. Uncorrected (p) distancesfor ingroup (Passerinaand Guiraca)taxa range from 3.0% (P.versicolor-P. ciris) to 7.6%(P. cyanea- P.leclancherii) and average6.5% overall. Assuming a molecularclock, a bunting"radiation" between4.1 and 7.3 Mya yielded four lineages.This timing is consistentwith fossilevidence and coincideswith a late-Miocenecooling during which a varietyof westerngrassland hab- itatsevolved. A reductionin sizeat that time may haveallowed buntings to exploitthat new foodresource (grass seeds). We speculate that the BlueGrosbeak subsequently gained large size and widespreaddistribution as a result of ecologicalcharacter displacement. Received 25 October1999, accepted 16 September2000. THE BUNTINGSof the avian genusPasserina ently recognized (Sibley and Monroe 1990, (family Cardinalidae) include six species AOU 1998),form a natural group.Nevertheless, whose compositerange includesMexico, the some authors (Phillips et al. 1964, Blake 1969, United States,and parts of southernCanada. Mayr and Short1970) place the monotypicBlue They are small, heavy-billed finches,most of Grosbeak(Guiraca caerulea) within this genus, which (see Thompson and Leu 1995) exhibit and others(Paynter 1970) further expandPas- pronouncedsexual dichromatism with brightly serinato include additional genera.Thus, de- coloredmales and mostlybrownish or olive fe- spite the phenotypic similarities of the six rec- males. Traditional museum studies relying ognized species, monophyly of Passerina upon comparisonsof studyskins (e.g. Ridgway remains unresolved. 1901),as well asa morerecent study employing Relationshipswithin Passerinaalso remain numericalphenetic analyses of both skinsand unclear. Phillips et al. (1964) consider the In- skeletons(Hellack and Schnell 1977), have con- digo Bunting(E cyanea)and the Lazuli Bunting cludedthat the membersof Passerina,as pres- (P. amoena)conspecific. Hybridization on the GreatPlains between P. cyanea and P.amoena has 3 Present address: Barrick Museum, Box 454012, been well documented(Sibley and Short 1959, University of Nevada Las Vegas, 4505 Maryland Emlen et al. 1975, Kroodsma et al. 1975). Sim- Parkway, Las Vegas, Nevada 89154-4012, USA. ilarly, the Painted Bunting (P.ciris) and Varied E-mail: [email protected] Bunting (P. versicolor)are known to have hy- 4Present address: Department of Ecology and bridized (Storer 1961). Whereas such hybrid- EvolutionaryBiology, Box G-W, Brown University, Providence, Rhode Island 02912, USA. izationmight be takenas evidence of sister-spe- sPresent address: Washington Department of Fish ciesrelationships, a known pairing betweenP. and Wildlife, 16018 Mill Creek Boulevard, Mill cyaneaand P. ciris (Taylor 1974) muddles the Creek, Washington98012, USA. picture.The ability to hybridizemight be a mis- 611 612 KLICKAET AL. [Auk, Vol. 118 leading indicator of relationship (Zink and (outgroup). Those three generawere thus targeted McKitrick 1995), therefore the construction of for completecyt-b genesequencing. Because adding an independentphylogeny is warranted. more taxa to the sistergroup increasesthe chanceof Our understandingof the speciesin Passerina obtaining the correcttree (Smith 1994), single rep- resentatives of all three members of Cyanocompsa is uneven.Passerina cyanea is among our best were subsequentlyused. To obtaina measureof in- known songbirdswith song,display behaviors, traspecificgenetic variation and to provide a check mating strategies,molt, and migration having for potentialsequencing errors, each of sixspecies of been studied extensively(see Payne's[1992] Passerinaand the monotypic G. caerulea(ingroup comprehensivereview for references).At the taxa) were representedby two differenttissue spec- other extreme are the endemic forms of south- imens (Table 1). ern Mexico, Leclancher's(Orange-breasted) Laboratoryprotocols.--Total DNA was extracted Bunting (P.leclancherii) and Rosita's(Rose-bel- from fragments(-100 mg) of muscleor liver tissues lied) Bunting(P. rositae), about which very little followingeither a standardphenol/chloroform pro- tocol (Hillis et al. 1996) or via incubationin Chelex/ is known. A few comparativestudies have in- Proteinase K, a modification of Ellegren's (1992) volved most or all members of Passerina, ex- method. Overlapping sequencefragments were am- amining molts and plumages(summarized in plified via the polymerasechain reaction(PCR) us- Thompsonand Leu 1994), songs (Thompson ing variouscombinations of the followingpublished 1968), and morphology (Hellack and Schnell primers:L14851 (Kornegayet al. 1993),L14841 (Ko- 1977). However,interpretation of thosestudies cher et al. 1989), H15299 (Hackett 1996), H4A is compromisedby the lack of an explicitphy- (Harshman 1996), LCBA, LCBB, LCBC, HCBC logenetic hypothesis (Brooks and McLennan (Klicka et al. 1999);and two designed(J. Klicka) for 1991). general use on New World nine-primariedoscines: In this study,we usedDNA sequencesfrom HCBRB (GGAGAATGACTCCGAYGTTTCA), and the completemitochondrial (mtDNA) protein HCBJT (GGCTGGGGTGAAATTTTCTGGGTCT). A map of primer locationsis availableby request.PCR coding cytochrome-b(cyt-b) gene to assessthe reactionswere performedin 50 bL total volumesus- monophyly of Passerinaas presently recog- ing a 1.5 mM concentrationof MgC12,1 •M concen- nized and to constructa phylogenetichypoth- trations of eachprimer, 0.2 mM final concentration esis for the constituentsof this group. Cyt-b of dNTPs, 0.5 •L of Tfi polymerase(Thermusfiavus, and its flanking regionsare well characterized Epicentre), 2.2 •L of 20x Tfi buffer (400 mM in birds and its rate of evolutionis particularly [NH412SO4and 1 M Tris-HC1 [pH 9.0], Epicentre)and well suited for avian studiesat the specieslevel 10-1,000 ng (2 •L) of DNA template.A typical dou- (Moore and DeFilippis 1997). The resulting ble-strandedamplification began with a 2 min de- phylogenetictree providesa historicalframe- naturationat 94øCfollowed by 38 cyclesof denatur- work for a better understandingof the evolu- ing (94øC,45 s), annealing(54øC, 1 min, 30 s), and primer extension(72øC, 1 min, 30 s) with a final ex- tion of variouslife-history traits and for inves- tensionof 72øCfor 10 min. The presenceof the de- tigating historicalbiogeography. siredproduct was verified by electrophoresisof 5 bL in a 1% agarosegel (SeakemLE, FMC) followedby METHODS Ethidium Bromide staining. Excess primers and dNTPs were then removed by enzymatic treatment Taxon sampling.--Outgroupchoice is a critical of the PCR product with Exonuclease1 and Shrimp component of molecular phylogenetic analysis Alkaline Phosphatase(U.S. BiochemicalCorp.). To (Smith 1994).Outgroups that are too distantly relat- ensuresequencing accuracy, large fragment overlaps ed to the group of interest lead to spuriousrooting were used and wherever possible both light and of the ingroup topology (Wheeler 1990). Relation- heavy strandsof the treatedproduct were sequenced ships among Cardinalid genera are poorly under- using either the original or nestedprimers. Sequenc- stood, thereforean initial genericlevel phylogenetic ing reactions(Hillis et al. 1996)were donemanually surveyof the groupwas performed.A cyt-b (430bp) (productno. 70130,U.S.B.), run out on 6% acrylam- segmentfrom at leastone representativeof eachpu- ide (Gene-Page,Amresco) gels, and visualizedby au- tative Cardinalid genus (exceptingCyanoloxia) was toradiography (3sS). Sequences (GenBank nos. sequenced,as were representativesof severalThrau- AF301446-AF301462) were aligned visually using pid genera,which were used as outgroups.The de- published chicken (Gallus;Desjardins and Morals tailed resultsof that initial study are to be published 1990) and Snow Goose (Chen [Anser] caerulescens; elsewhere;however, in all phylogeneticanalyses the Quinn and Wilson 1993) sequencesfor comparison. Passerinabuntings and G. caeruleawere determined Data analysis.--Parsimony(uniform and differen- to constitutea clade (ingroup), sisterto Cyanocompsa tial weighting schemes)and maximum-likelihood April 2001] PasserinaBunting Paraphyly 613 z methodswere used to estimatephylogenetic trees For comparison,and to allow quick visual assess- ment of relative geneticdistances, we alsoconstruct- ed neighbor-joiningtrees. All analyseswere