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Systematics And Diversification Of The Pantropical Avian Order Coraciiformes, Jenna Merle Mccullough
Systematics And Diversification Of The Pantropical Avian Order Coraciiformes, Jenna Merle Mccullough
Biology ETDs
How and why species diversify is a central theme of evolutionary biology. Species-rich, morphologically diverse, pantropical clades provide rare opportunities to explore questions about drivers of diversification in the tropics. Here, we present the first complete species tree of Coraciiformes (6 families, ~177 species of kingfishers, motmots, bee-eaters, and allies), produced with thousands of ultraconserved elements. We recovered a well-supported tree which shows that there are two clades within Coraciiformes: 1) bee-eaters sister to rollers + ground- rollers and 2) todies sister to motmots + kingfishers. We estimated the biogeographical history of the group, explored bill shape evolution with a …