How migratory thrushes conquered northern North America: a comparative phylogeography approach.

ABSTRACT: Five species of migratory thrushes (Turdidae) occupy a transcontinental distribution across northern North America. They have largely overlapping breeding ranges, relatively similar ecological niches, and mutualistic relationships with northern woodland communities as insectivores and seed-dispersing frugivores. As an assemblage of ecologically similar species, and given other vertebrate studies, we predicted a shared pattern of genetic divergence among these species between their eastern and western populations, and also that the timing of the coalescent events might be similar and coincident with historical glacial events. To determine how these five lineages effectively established transcontinental distributions, we used mitochondrial cytochrome b sequences to assess genetic structure a

SUBMITTER: Topp CM 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC3828608 | biostudies-literature | 2013

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature