Significant Asia‐Europe divergence in the middle spotted woodpecker (Aves, Picidae)

Phylogeny and evolutionary history of the Sombre Tit, Poecile lugubris in the western Palearctic (Aves, Paridae)

Few studies have delimited evolutionary entities within the Sombre Tit, Poecile lugubris. Here, we explored its morphological and genetic variability using 24 morphometric variables, two mitochondrial (COX1 and ND2), two nuclear (ODC and MB), and 10 microsatellite loci. Genetic and morphometric characters supported the species status of the Caspian Tit, Poecile hyrcanus with a separation from P. lugubris more than 4.5 MYA. The phylogenetic analyses uncovered three distinct clades within P. lugubris. The subspecies P. l. lugubris, with strong genetic differences from the other subspecies (4.5%), diverged at ∼1.1 MYA. Samples from Iran formed the remaining two clades. Individuals from western and northwestern Iran were placed in a single clade (anatoliae), while those from southern and southwestern Iran were in another independent clade (dubius-kirmanensis). Morphometric analyses also confirmed this pattern. The microsatellite results discriminated Iranian subspecies as discrete clusters with signs of nuclear admixture between dubius and anatoliae in the Zagros Mountains. Signs of population expansion for anatoliae and dubius-kirmanensis coincided with the late LGM. Our results shed new light on the phylogenetic relationships, evolutionary history, and past demographic processes of P. lugubris.

Common patterns in the molecular phylogeography of western palearctic birds: a comprehensive review

A plethora of studies have offered crucial insights in the phylogeographic status of Western Palearctic bird species. However, an overview integrating all this information and analyzing the combined results is still missing. In this study, we compiled all published peer-reviewed and grey literature available on the phylogeography of Western Palearctic bird species. Our literature review indicates a total number of 198 studies, with the overwhelming majority published as journal articles (n = 186). In total, these literature items offer information on 145 bird species. 85 of these species are characterized by low genetic differentiation, 46 species indicate genetic variation but no geographic structuring i.e. panmixia, while 14 species show geographically distinct lineages and haplotypes. Majority of bird species inhabiting the Western Palearctic display genetic admixture. The glaciation cycles in the past few million years were pivotal factors in shaping this situation: during warm periods many species expanded their distribution range to the north over wide areas of Eurasia; whereas, during ice ages most areas were no longer suitable and species retreated to refugia, where lineages mixed.

SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION

The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s10336-021-01893-x.

Observer-oriented approach improves species distribution models from citizen science data

Citizen science platforms are increasingly growing, and, storing a huge amount of data on species locations, they provide researchers with essential information to develop sound strategies for species conservation. However, the lack of information on surveyed sites (i.e., where the observers did not record the target species) and sampling effort (e.g., the number of surveys at a given site, by how many observers, and for how much time) strongly limit the use of citizen science data. Thus, we examined the advantage of using an observer-oriented approach (i.e., considering occurrences of species other than the target species collected by the observers of the target species as pseudo-absences and additional predictors relative to the total number of observations, observers, and days in which locations were collected in a given sampling unit, as proxies of sampling effort) to develop species distribution models. Specifically, we considered 15 mammal species occurring in Italy and compared the predictive accuracy of the ensemble predictions of nine species distribution models carried out considering random pseudo-absences versus observer-oriented approach. Through cross-validations, we found that the observer-oriented approach improved species distribution models, providing a higher predictive accuracy than random pseudo-absences. Our results showed that species distribution modeling developed using pseudo-absences derived citizen science data outperform those carried out using random pseudo-absences and thus improve the capacity of species distribution models to accurately predict the geographic range of species when deriving robust surrogate of sampling effort.