BirdLife Australia Working List of Australian Birds v2 summary ! This major update to the BirdLife Australia Working List of Australian Birds (WLAB) features substantial changes to several key !fields as well as a major taxonomic update to Australian non-passerines. !The updated list is available at birdlife.org.au/taxonomy. Revisions to Australian non-passerine taxa have arisen from the landmark publication of the Handbook of the Birds of the World and BirdLife International Illustrated Checklist of the Birds of the World. Volume 1: Non-passerines (del Hoyo et al. 2014). This update brings us into line with the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN)/Birdlife International listings and with the Australian Bird Database (Garnett et al. 2015) which is a landmark achievement in Australian ornithological data collation. The HBW/BLI team is currently busy reviewing passerines, and so changes in this update are limited to non-passerines pending release for volume 2 of the Handbook of the Birds of the World and BirdLife International Illustrated Checklist of the Birds of the !World. !Several changes to Australian subspecies are also included, based on new information or corrections to existing listings. Australian conservation status listings are updated with recent additions from the BirdLife Australia Threatened Species Committee, using IUCN criteria. This brings the list up to date, with comprehensive conservation classifications for all Australian taxa (species and subspecies). Please see Garnett et al. (2015) for full historical conservation classifications and a comprehensive !set of current Australian state/territory and federal government conservation classifications. Additions of newly accepted records of taxa hitherto unrecorded in Australia, from the BirdLife Australia Rarities Committee !(BARC), are also included. The following pages outline major changes which are also available for filtering in columns N (v2 change) and O (v2 change notes) in list. ! !Taxonomic changes Taxonomic changes are summarised in the ‘Taxonomic changes’ table at the end of this document, which features summary !information and references for review. Changes from del Hoyo et al. (2014) have been reviewed as much as possible — including very helpful feedback from experts in various fields. To this end, two changes proposed in del Hoyo et al. (2014) are delayed while further information is sought (see !following page). Further feedback on any taxonomic proposals are welcome. Please note that BirdLife Australia utilises a Biological Species Concept based on the “Quantitative criteria for species delimitation” (Tobias et al. 2010). Where recent genetic analyses have been published, such studies are highlighted in taxonomic notes. Given the number of these studies coming out we may not have captured them all, so please feel free to suggest citations for inclusion in !the taxonomic notes field. Please see the “BirdLife Australia taxonomic approach statement” at www.birdlife.org.au/taxonomy for further details. ! ! ! ! Revisions from del Hoyo et al. (2014) not implemented in this release !Spinifex Pigeon revision Baptista et al. (2015) in del Hoyo et al. (2014) proposed a revision to the Spinifex Pigeon, suggesting that the ‘White-bellied’ taxa (plumifera and leucogaster) of central and northern Australia should be separated from the ‘Rufous-bellied’ taxon (ferruginea) of the Pilbra. However, we are seeking clarification of the assessment, given the large hybrid zone between ferruginea and leucogaster through the centralian ranges — “from western MacDonnell Ranges and Ayers Rock–Petermann Ranges to Rawlinson and Mann Ranges” (Schodde and Mason 1997 p. 39) and how this relates to the Tobias et al. (2010) Trait type or context 5 “Geographical !relationship”. Phenotypic variation in the Spinifex Pigeons has been long noted — e.g. Crome et al. (1980) and Johnston (1981) — but those authors concluded the variations were likely clinal. However, there is a large gap in records between the ferruginea–leucogaster hybrid zone and ferruginea, which is very unusual for birds undergoing actual introgression. The debate about Spinifex Pigeons in not over, and it may well prove to be the case that there are two ‘good’ biological species in this complex. BirdLife Australia is currently working with BirdLife International to review this !complex. ! !South Island Pied Oystercatcher revision Hockey et al. (2013) in del Hoyo et al. (2014) listed South Island Pied Oystercatcher (Haematopus finschi) as a subspecies of Eurasian Oystercatcher (Haematopus ostralegus). However, they noted that the assessment was unclear, saying “Taxonomic status of form finschi unclear, and may be a distinct species”. Moreover, there are phenotypic differences between the taxa (Danny !Rogers pers. comms): • White wing-bar of Eurasian Oystercatcher projects much further onto the primaries than on South Island Pied Oystercatcher. • South Island Pied Oystercatcher is longer billed and shorter legged than Eurasian Oystercatcher. ! • South Island Pied Oystercatcher doesn't develop a big white patch on the throat in non-breeding plumage. Consequently, we have retained South Island Pied Oystercatcher (Haematopus finschi) as a full species in line with the Ornithological Society of New Zealand (2010) listing, pending further investigation. The taxon is only a vagrant to Australia. ! ! !Higher taxonomic changes Recognising that our understanding of genetic relationships among birds is dynamic and is constantly throwing light on how our birds evolved, we have implemented the latest updates from the recently published suite of papers in Science 346 “A Flock of Genomes” and other research. Consequently, scientific names in this update are very different from previous Australian lists at the level of Order, Family and Genus. This represents a huge advance in our understanding of higher order systematics for Australian !birds (Joseph and Buchanan 2015). Changes to Order follow Jarvis et al. (2014) and generic names follow Dickinson et al. (2013) — i.e. The Howard and Moore Complete Checklist of the Birds of the World — as the best complete references for recent higher-level relationships. These !changes also form the basis of extensive changes to the listing sequence. Changes to existing WLAB listings are: • 98 changes to order names • 180 changes to family scientific names • 43 changes to family common names • 139 changes to genus names ! !Common name changes Some of the species level taxonomic changes proposed necessitate consideration of changes to common names. These fall under the jurisdiction of the English Names Committee which plays the leading role in providing the sensible and consistent Australian bird names that have been the prime identities for ornithological and conservation science for nearly 40 years (RAOU !1978). Where recent taxonomic revisions which have resulted in changes to international common names, these are listed in the !‘Common name changes’ table at the end of this document. !Australian conservation status updates Official Australian conservation status (based on Action Plan for Australian Birds with recent additions from the BirdLife Australia Threatened Species Committee using IUCN criteria) have been updated. There are 16 substantive changes to this field, bringing us up to date with the latest and most accurate conservation classifications for species and subspecies. The conservation status of Mallee Striated Grasswren is currently being reviewed — population trend estimates and other information are in preparation !and this taxon will be updated as soon as possible. Taxon name Taxon scien,fic name Previous lisng New lis,ng Western Hooded Plover Thinornis cucullatus tregellasi Vulnerable Least Concern Eastern Curlew Numenius madagascariensis Vulnerable Cri6cally Endangered Northern Siberian Bar-tailed Godwit Limosa lapponica menzbieri Vulnerable Endangered Great Knot Calidris tenuirostris Vulnerable Endangered Red Knot Calidris canutus Vulnerable Endangered New Siberian Islands Red Knot Calidris canutus piersmai Vulnerable Endangered North-eastern Siberian Red Knot Calidris canutus rogersi Vulnerable Endangered Curlew Sandpiper Calidris ferruginea Vulnerable Cri6cally Endangered Red-necked S,nt Calidris ruficollis Least Concern Near Threatened Terek Sandpiper Xenus cinereus Least Concern Vulnerable Grey-tailed Taler Tringa brevipes Near Threatened Least Concern White-fronted Tern Sterna striata Near Threatened Least Concern Light-mantled Sooty Albatross Phoebetria palpebrata Endangered Near Threatened SwiI Parrot Lathamus discolor Endangered Cri6cally Endangered Carpentarian Grasswren Amytornis dorotheae Near Threatened Vulnerable Sandhill Striated Grasswren Amytornis striatus oweni Near Threatened Least Concern Mallee Striated Grasswren Amytornis striatus striatus Assessment pending ! !Changes in taxonomic status of threatened birds Taxonomic changes can cause confusion and concern where they occur for threatened birds. An example is the Critically Endangered Western Ground Parrot. Western Ground Parrots have had a 100-year history of taxonomic uncertainty. Western Ground Parrots have been described species (North 1911), a subspecies (Matthews 1913), a species (Murphy et al. 2010), a subspecies (BirdLife International 2012). Ford (1969) questioned the validity of separating the mainland populations of Ground Parrots at the subspecies level based on morphometric analyses of Ground Parrot specimens from NSW, Vic, Tas, SA and WA. Clearly, Ground Parrot