The Amazon and Atlantic forests harbour immense biodiversity shaped by complex evolutionary history with diverse processes leading to species build‐up. We investigated the Cinereous Antshrike species complex ( Thamnomanes caesius and T. schistogynus ) to disentangle the relative contributions of riverine barriers and historical climatic fluctuations to diversification, using large specimen sampling across their entire distribu...

Heterogeneous mountainous environments and climate fluctuations during glacial periods can accelerate speciation and adaptive evolution in mountainous species. However, the interplay between these processes and their collective impact on mountainous diversity remains poorly understood, particularly across broad geographic scales. We conducted a comparative genomic study of Prunellidae (accentors), an avian family distributed a...

Speciation is a fundamental concept in evolutionary biology, and understanding the mechanisms driving speciation remains the foremost research topic within this field. Hybridisation is often involved in speciation and can influence its rates, potentially accelerating, decelerating or even reversing the process. This study investigates the evolutionary history of the New Guinean bird genus Melidectes , consisting of six species...

Toxicology-related experts are on a daily basis working with the safety assessment of chemicals for human health and the environment, providing knowledge applied for management and regulation of chemicals. The field of toxicology is undergoing continuous transition away from traditional safety evaluation studies in experimental animals to application of new approach methodologies (NAMs), the use of omics-related technologies,...

On 25 August 2022, the Zoologica Scripta ‐ An International Journal of Systematic Zoology and the Norwegian Academy of Sciences and Letters arranged a symposium entitled ‘The role of systematics for understanding ecosystem functions’ in the Academy's premises in Oslo, Norway. The symposium aimed at offering a forum for exploring and discussing trends and future developments in the field of systematics. Eleven international exp...

The European Robin Erithacus rubecula is currently treated as a single species with eight subspecies. A previous molecular study and new molecular, morphometric and bioacoustic data reported here strongly support the recognition of three species in this complex: E. rubecula (Europe, North Africa and Macaronesia except the central Canary Islands), E. superbus (Tenerife) and a recently described subspecies on Gran Canaria which...

Aim The Pleistocene glacial cycles play a prominent role in shaping phylogeographical patterns of organisms, while few studies have focused on the regional difference of glacial effects. By acquiring comprehensive knowledge of the origin, diversification and historical demography of an intensively studied passerine species complex, Great Tit, we aim to test the regional variation of the Late Pleistocene glaciation impacts on t...

DNA phylogenies have gradually shed light on the phylogenetic relationships of the large babbler group. We focus in this study on the family Leiothrichidae (laughingthrushes and “song babblers”), which represents the largest clade of babblers in terms of species diversity. Our phylogeny includes all genera and 82% of the recognized species, using mitochondrial and nuclear loci. The sister group to Leiothrichidae is composed of...

Aim The location of zoogeographical boundaries in eastern China has long been the subject of debate. To identify any north/south genetic divergence between the Palaearctic and Sino‐Japanese realms proposed by previous studies, we conducted a comparative phylogeographical study involving three passerine species with wide latitudinal distributions in eastern China. Location Eastern China. Methods Two mitochondrial genes and thre...

On 5 November 2015, The Norwegian Academy of Sciences and Letters ( DNVA ) and the editors of the Zoologica Scripta invited to the one‐day symposium ‘Systematics and Biodiversity Research in the Era of Genomics’. Some 80 scientists gathered at the premises of the DNVA in Oslo, Norway, to explore and discuss the current trends and future developments in the field of Animal Systematics.

The Australo‐Papuan catbird genus Ailuroedus has a complex distribution and a contested taxonomy. Here, we integrate phylogenetic analysis of DNA data and morphology to study the group's biogeography and to re‐examine its taxonomy. We couple phylogeographic and abiotic data to examine differences between the major groups defined in our phylogenetic analysis. Our results are consistent with Ailuroedus catbirds being divided int...

The Indo‐Malayan bioregion has provided some of the most spectacular discoveries of new vertebrate species (e.g. saola, khanyou, bare‐faced bulbul) over the last 25 years. Yet, very little is known about the processes that led to the current biodiversity in this region. We reconstructed the phylogeographic history of a group of closely related passerines, the Alophoixus bulbuls. These birds are continuously distributed in Indo...

Aim East Asia is known for its exceptionally high biological diversity and endemism. Various geological and climatic events during the Pliocene and Pleistocene have been invoked to explain this high endemism, and these processes have had different impacts on different organisms. Herein, we investigate the relative role of these historical processes in the genetic evidence for endemism of intraspecific lineages of two East Asia...

China's Southwest Mountainous Region in Eastern Himalaya is a ‘biodiversity hotspot’ of global interest for conservation. Yet little is known about what has driven this unique diversity. The dramatic topography of the Southwest Mountainous Region resulting from the tectonic uplift during the late Pliocene leads to dramatic ecological stratification, which creates physical barriers to migration and isolates organisms into diffe...

Aim To reconstruct the biogeographical history of a large clade of mainly terrestrially adapted birds (coraciiform and piciform birds, owls, diurnal raptors, New World vultures, trogons, mousebirds, cuckoo‐rollers, seriemas, parrots and passerines) to test the hypothesis of its Gondwanan origin. Location Global. Methods The phylogenetic tree used in the analysis was a family‐level tree estimated from previously published nucle...

Aim Boreal forest bird species appear to be divided into lineages endemic to each northern continent, in contrast to Holarctic species living in open habitats. For example, the three‐toed woodpecker ( Picoides tridactylus ) and the winter wren ( Troglodytes troglodytes ) have divergent Nearctic and Palaearctic mitochondrial DNA clades. Furthermore, in these species, the next closest relative of the Nearctic/Palaearctic sister...

Jønsson, K. A., Irestedt, M., Ericson, P. G. P. & Fjeldså, J. (2009). A molecular phylogeny of minivets (Passeriformes: Campephagidae: Pericrocotus ): implications for biogeography and convergent plumage evolution.— Zoologica Scripta, 39 , 1–8. Minivets are conspicuous and mostly intensely colourful birds inhabiting wooded environments in tropical and subtropical South and Southeast Asia and temperate East Asia. We present a r...

Babblers, family Timaliidae, have long been subject to debate on systematic position, family limits and internal taxonomy. In this study, we use five molecular regions to estimate the relationships among a large proportion of genera traditionally placed in Timaliidae. We find good support for five main clades within this radiation, and propose a new classification, dividing the babblers into the families Sylviidae and Timaliid...

We used nuclear and mitochondrial genes to generate a phylogenetic hypothesis for the Palearctic–Oriental starlings and mynas (genera Sturnus , Acridotheres , Leucopsar , Creatophora and Fregilupus : Sturnidae). Our results indicate that the group has undergone a rapid diversification in Asia since the late Miocene. A reassessment of the morphological and ecological characters used in previous taxonomic revisions shows that al...