Talk:Corvoidea
NON-MALAGASY GENERA OF VANGIDAE
[edit]THESE FAMILY SHOULD BE DELETED
and Bias and Megabyas should also be in the family Vangidae
Cladogram
[edit]The article includes a cladogram based on a study by Jønsson, K.A. et al. (2011). This study used only a small amount of DNA sequence data and is unlikely to be correct - even with the polytomies. I've looked at more recent publications that use a large number of markers but unfortunately some of the nodes in the cladograms are not well supported by the data. I had hoped to be able to replace the Jønsson cladogram with a definitive version but this doesn't seem to be possible.
The largest study of the passerine phylogeny is: Oliveros, C.H.; et al. (2019). "Earth history and the passerine superradiation". Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States. 116 (16): 7916–7925. doi:10.1073/pnas.1813206116. This study used 4,060 ultraconserved element (UCE) loci. Their cladogram is:
A very recent study that includes the Corvoidea is: Kuhl, H.; Frankl-Vilches, C.; Bakker, A.; Mayr, G.; Nikolaus, G.; Boerno, S.T.; Klages, S.; Timmermann, B.; Gahr, M. (2020). "An unbiased molecular approach using 3′-UTRs resolves the avian family-level tree of life". Molecular Biology and Evolution. doi:10.1093/molbev/msaa191. As specified in the title, the study used 3′-UTRs (untranslated regions) of mRNA. The study did not include a specimen from Melampittidae. The cladogram is:
I was disappointed that they weren't identical. I then looked at the "Supporting information" for the Oliveros article here which contains the text "Within this clade, however, relationships among monarchs (Monarchidae), ifrit (Ifritidae), birds of paradise (Paradisaeidae), Australian mudnesters (Corcoracidae), melampittas (Melampittidae), and the clade formed by shrikes (Laniidae), crested jay (Platylophidae), and crows and jays (Corvidae) are unclear." The cladogram in the Supporting information is: