A Large Evaluation of Passerine Cisticolids (Aves: Passeriformes): More About Their Phylogeny and Diversification

Abstract

African warblers (or Cisticolidae family) are small perching song birds with a large number of genera distributed throughout the World. The phylogeny of Cisticolidae is well-supported but their diversification is currently poorly known. To deepen their understanding of phylogeny and investigate their diversification, we sequenced four loci (mito-chondrial ATPase 6, ND2 and ND3, and nuclear myoglobin intron 2) for several new cisticolid taxa and added several other sequences. Our analyses retrieve the monophyly of the African warblers and confirm Neomixis as their deepest branch. A group of taxa appear as their potential sister-taxa with our ND2 analyses but not with our combined analyses. New relationships are well-supported. Thus Scotocerca inquieta nests in the cettid clade whereas Camaroptera super-ciliaris, Cisticola chubbi, Cisticola tinniens, Prinia flavicans and Poliolais lopezi belong to the cisticolid clade. Our results support a splitting of the African warblers in two main clades. The first clade consists of genera Orthotomus, Prinia, Cisticola, Scepomycter, Incana, Bathmocercus, Eminia, Hypergerus and Heliolais while the second includes genera Poli-olais, Camaroptera, Urolais, Artisornis, Oreolais, Apalis, Schistolais, Calamonastes and Spiloptila. Our results confirm the polyphyly of Orthotomus which generates a muddle between some Cettia species and other Asian tailorbirds. Waiting a study with Orthotomus sepium Horsf., 1821, to clarify their taxonomy, we suggest temporarily that the name Phyller-gates cucullatus Temminck, 1836, refers to Orthotomus cucullatus of the present study. Our dating analysis reveals that cisticolid clades began their diversification during the transition Early-Middle Miocene epoch and at the beginning of the Pliocene epoch. The diversification of the "open cisticolid" clade would have occurred during the Middle Miocene but that of the "forest cisticolid" lineage would have taken place during the Upper Miocene.