birding-aus

Re: New Clements book

To:
Subject: Re: New Clements book
From: "Chris Sanderson" <>
Date: Tue, 26 Jun 2007 20:37:31 +1000
Hi Andrew,

Wouldn't a 50-100m wide river be an awful risk for a poor-flying shy species known to not willingly cross paths let alone a river?  It's not a case of being incapable but unwilling I'd imagine?  Don't know if this is the real reason, but it sounds likely to me.

Regards,
Chris

On 6/26/07, Andrew Taylor <> wrote:
On Tue, Jun 26, 2007 at 05:51:31PM +1000, Murray Lord wrote:
> If you read the scientific literature you will find plenty of
> justification for recent splits.

And there may be plenty to come.  I was at a couple of recent talks on
evolution in Amazonian birds which presented genetic data suggested rivers
may be more effective barriers to rainforest birds than you'd expect.

For one Antbird, based on limited genetic sampling, the differentiation
was such that it looked as though it should be split into five species.
And for another species, a 9-way split was conceivable.  This isn't a
matter of changing species definitions - it looked to me these would
be classical BSC species.  The presenters didn't discuss this.  They
were focused on evolutionary history, not species status.

I don't understand how a 50-100m wide river acts as a such a long-term
barrier and there is obviously a great deal of research to be done
but in the next decade or so expect a lot a splitting where birds have
pan-Amazonian distribution

Andrew
===============================
www.birding-aus.org
birding-aus.blogspot.com

To unsubscribe from this mailing list,
send the message:
unsubscribe
(in the body of the message, with no Subject line)
to:
===============================

<Prev in Thread] Current Thread [Next in Thread>
Admin

The University of NSW School of Computer and Engineering takes no responsibility for the contents of this archive. It is purely a compilation of material sent by many people to the birding-aus mailing list. It has not been checked for accuracy nor its content verified in any way. If you wish to get material removed from the archive or have other queries about the archive e-mail Andrew Taylor at this address: andrewt@cse.unsw.EDU.AU