AW: Pelecaniform and ciconiiform birds, origin and niche stability

[evelyn sobielski <koreke77@yahoo.de>]

--- Ben Creisler <bcreisler@gmail.com> schrieb am Do, 4.4.2013:

> water-carnivore clade. We find pelicans are the closest
> relatives of
> the shoebill (in a clade with the hammerkop),

Does anyone have a PDF? 

Mitogenome sampling was too bad for this group in general, and particularly for 
the three above. I tried what I could, but the whole thing was dangerously 
unstable, too many main lineages with 1 leaf only. In particular Ciconia 
ciconia basically did whatever it bloody well wanted, which was rarely 
constructive.

ND1 was the only mt locus (in fact the ONLY locus I have found) for which a 
sufficient taxon sample* was available til now, and there Strisores and/or 
cuckoos and/or trogons LBA into Aequornithes. Also included are, perhaps 
significantly, NW vultures and bustards, which in some other loci stay well 
away from long-legged aquatic birds. Interestingly NW vults wind up closer to 
Gruiformes than bustards, which otherwise often pop up as basal Gruiformes more 
often than the "Metaves" combined-data analyses would have you think.

(I did not include all Aequornithes, leaving out the "saltwater" group. Perhaps 
including them will exclude Strisores et al?)


Thanks in advance, 

Eike


* Pelecanus (at least 1, better 2, maybe best P.onocrotalus + P.conspicillatus 
+ 1 OldWorld sp.), Balaeniceps, Scopus, Ciconiidae (at least 3, optimally 
Mycteria/Jabiru etc + Ciconia + Ciconia/Leptotilos), Ardeidae (at least 3 - 
heron, bittern, tiger-heron), Threskiornithidae (at least 2 - ibis & spoonbill. 
Better: basal & advanced ibis + spoonbill).

Biggest problem in general is lack of thorough sampling of Ciconiidae & 
Pelecanidae. At least mt sample for Ardeidae & Threskiornithidae usually 
complete enough to work with.