Louisiana State University LSU Digital Commons LSU Historical Dissertations and Theses Graduate School 1995 Biogeographic, Ecological, and Evolutionary Aspects of South American Austral Migration, With Special Reference to the Family Tyrannidae. Robert Terry Chesser Louisiana State University and Agricultural & Mechanical College Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.lsu.edu/gradschool_disstheses Recommended Citation Chesser, Robert Terry, "Biogeographic, Ecological, and Evolutionary Aspects of South American Austral Migration, With Special Reference to the Family Tyrannidae." (1995). LSU Historical Dissertations and Theses. 6087. https://digitalcommons.lsu.edu/gradschool_disstheses/6087 This Dissertation is brought to you for free and open access by the Graduate School at LSU Digital Commons. It has been accepted for inclusion in LSU Historical Dissertations and Theses by an authorized administrator of LSU Digital Commons. 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BIOGEOGRAPHIC, ECOLOGICAL, AND EVOLUTIONARY ASPECTS OF SOUTH AMERICAN AUSTRAL MIGRATION, WITH SPECIAL REFERENCE TO THE FAMILY TYRANNIDAE A Dissertation Submitted to the Graduate Faculty of the Louisiana State University and Agricultural and Mechanical College in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in The Department of Zoology and Physiology by Robert Terry Chesser B. A., Georgia State University, 1982 December 1995 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. UMI Number: 9618277 UMI Microform 9618277 Copyright 1996, by UMI Company. All rights reserved. This microform edition is protected against unauthorized copying under Title 17, United States Code. UMI 300 North Zeeb Road Ann Arbor, MI 48103 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS Many people made large contributions to the successful completion of my research and graduate career. My wife, Susan Chesser, has been especially supportive, encouraging, and patient during these six years of graduate school, and I am happy to dedicate this dissertation to her. I also wish to thank my parents, Don and JoAnne Chesser, for their interest in and encouragement of my studies during these and previous years. I am grateful as well to Joe Greenberg for stimulating my initial interest in birds with his famous Birds of Georgia class. I thank the graduate students, curators, and staff of the Museum of Natural Science for providing a wonderful atmosphere in which to study and do research. Ken Rosenberg and John Bates, as senior graduate students, were particularly helpful during my early years at L.S.U., and it was a great pleasure to have John O'Neill as expedition leader on my first trip to South America. I am grateful to Van Remsen for teaching me much of what I know about scientific thinking and bird biology, and to him and the other members of my committee for their help in directing my dissertation. Both Van and Ted Parker were instrumental in my originally considering doing research on South American austral migration. Several people contributed many hours of their time to the successful completion of the very difficult process of making the species maps that form a major part of the dissertation, and I am extremely grateful to them: Susan Chesser for entering geographical data into computer files, Jane Read for developing the base map of South America, and David Good for writing the mapping program and permitting me to use his computer to print the maps. I also thank the Department of Geography and Anthropology for allowing me to use the Computer Mapping Sciences Lab and the South American boundary files. I thank Mario Cohn-Haft for his key advice on the format of the species accounts that accompany Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. the maps. A special thanks goes to my co-author on Chapter 5, Douglas J. Levey, whose name could not be included in the dissertation proper. My research could not have been completed without the assistance of numerous grants, and I am grateful to the following for their generous financial support: American Museum of Natural History, American Ornithologists' Union, Charles Fugler, L.S.U. Museum of Natural Science, Georgia Ornithological Society, J. William Eley, and Sigma Xi. Finally, I wish to thank the following for the use of museum collections under their care, for the loan of specimens, or for information concerning specimens, without which this research could not have been conducted: George Barrowdough, John Bates, Mary LeCroy, and Francois Vuilleumier (American Museum of Natural History), Peter Colston and Robert Prys-Jones (British Museum [Natural History]), David Agro, Mark Robbins, and Christopher Thompson (Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia), Robin Panza and Kenneth Parkes (Carnegie Museum), Gene Hess (Delaware Museum of Natural History), Scott Lanyon, Tom Schulenberg, Melvin Traylor and David Willard (Field Museum of Natural History), Estela Alabarce and Claudio Laredo (Fundacidn Miguel Lillo), Ricardo Ojeda (Institute de Investigaciones de las Zonas Aridas), Kimball Garrett (Los Angeles County Museum), Jorge Navas (Museo Argentina de Ciendas Naturales), Nelly B6 and Arubal Camperi (Museo de La Plata), Douglas Stotz (Museu de Zoologia da Universidade de S3o Paulo), Dante Teixeira and Jorge Nadnovic (Museu Nadonal de Rio de Janeiro), David Oren (Museu Paraense Emflio Goeldi), Raymond Paynter (Museum of Comparative Zoology), Julio Contreras (Programa de Biologia Bisica y Aplicada Subtropical), Janet Hinshaw and Bob Storer (University of Michigan Museum of Zoology), and Fred Sibley (Yale Peabody Museum). I also thank John O'Neill and Van Remsen for kindly providing information on spedmens housed in museums in Lima, Peru, and La Paz, Bolivia, respectively, and Jos£ Maria Cardoso da Silva and Jon FjeldsA for answering queries concerning specimens in the Swedish Museum of Natural History. iii Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. TABLE OF CONTENTS ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS......................................................................................................... ii ABSTRACT.................................................................................................................................... v CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION........................................................................................... 1 2 MIGRATION IN SOUTH AMERICA: AN OVERVIEW OF THE AUSTRAL SYSTEM............................................................................................. 4 3 BIOGEOGRAPHICAL AND ECOLOGICAL ASPECTS OF AUSTRAL MIGRATION OF TYRANT-FLYCATCHERS (TYRANNIDAE) IN SOUTH AMERICA (PART ONE: SPECIES ACCOUNTS) 25 4 BIOGEOGRAPHICAL AND ECOLOGICAL ASPECTS OF AUSTRAL MIGRATION OF TYRANT-FLYCATCHERS (TYRANNIDAE) IN SOUTH AMERICA (PART TWO: GENERAL PATTERNS) 195 5 DIET, HABITAT, AND MIGRATION REVISITED: AUSTRAL MIGRANTS AND THE EVOLUTION OF MIGRATION IN NEW WORLD BIRDS.................................................................................................. 273 6 CONCLUSIONS.............................................................................................. 294 REFERENCES................................................................................................................................ 297 APPENDICES A SPECIES LIST OF SOUTH AMERICAN AUSTRAL MIGRANTS 321 B MIGRATORY, DIETARY, AND HABITAT CHARACTERISTICS OF GENERA OF TYRANNIDAE....................................................... 329 C LETTER OF PERMISSION FROM PUBLISHER....................................... 331 VITA...............................................................................................................................................