Study On The Molecular System Of Birds Based On Multi - Locus

The genus Cyornis belongs to Muscicapidae, Passeriformes, Aves, comprising 25 currently recognized species. The Cyornis species are distributed throughout south Asia, from the Indian subcontinent to Southeast Asia, the Philippines and Indonesia. Most species are sexually dimorphic in plumage coloration, with males being blue in the upper part and mainly blue and white or orange and white in the under part, and while females are brown, although a few species (C umbratilis, C. olivaceus and C. ruficauda, which were previously placed in the genus Rhinomyias) are sexually monomorphic and lack bright colouration. Previous studies on phylogeny and evolution of Cyornis have mostly based on morphological, acoustical and zoogeographical characters. With the rapidly development of molecular techniques, a few molecullar studies have recently been done on the phylogenetic relationships of some species. The interspecific relationship is not determined, and taxonomic status of some species and subspecies are therefore to be confirmed.In this thesis, we used 3 mitochondrial loci (cytb, COI, ND2) and 5 nuclear loci (BRM, CHD1Z, MUSK, myo and Z185) totally 8 loci, c.6 kbp in length, to study 70 individuals of 18 species. A multiple analysis was used to reconstruct the phylogeny of Cyornis. Also cytb data set in some species was analysed in BEAST to estimate the divergence time among species; Sound recordings of several taxa were also obtained and sonograms were produced in Raven Pro 1.5. Our study did not support C. concretus as member in Cyornis. Deep divergences were observed among different subspecies of C. banyumas and C. rubeculoides. Subspecies C. r. glaucicomans was also shown to have a highly distinctive song from the others, which proposed to be treated as a species, C. glaucicomans, an endemic species to China. In contrast, C. r. klossi, which has a disjunct distribution range from the other subspecies of C. rubeculoides in south Vietnam, along with a recently discovered population in Guangdong Province, China, with plumage reminiscent of C. r. klossi, were indistinguishable from C. hainanus in all loci analyzed. More research is needed to elucidate its abnormal characteristics and taxonomic status. k1...