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An extinct hummingbird species that never was: a cautionary tale about sampling issues in molecular phylogenetics

Jorge L. Pérez-Emán, Jhoniel Perdigón Ferreira, Natalia Gutiérrez-Pinto, Andrés M. Cuervo, Laura N. Céspedes, Christopher C. Witt, View ORCID ProfileCarlos Daniel Cadena
doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/149898
Jorge L. Pérez-Emán
1Instituto de Zoología y Ecología Tropical, Facultad de Ciencias, Universidad Central de Venezuela, Caracas, Venezuela.
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  • For correspondence: jorge.perez@ciens.ucv.ve
Jhoniel Perdigón Ferreira
1Instituto de Zoología y Ecología Tropical, Facultad de Ciencias, Universidad Central de Venezuela, Caracas, Venezuela.
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Natalia Gutiérrez-Pinto
2Laboratorio de Biología Evolutiva de Vertebrados, Departamento de Ciencias Biológicas, Universidad de los Andes, Bogotá, Colombia.
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Andrés M. Cuervo
3Instituto de Investigación en Recursos Biológicos Alexander von Humboldt, Bogotá, Colombia.
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Laura N. Céspedes
2Laboratorio de Biología Evolutiva de Vertebrados, Departamento de Ciencias Biológicas, Universidad de los Andes, Bogotá, Colombia.
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Christopher C. Witt
4Museum of Southwestern Biology, University of New Mexico, Albuquerque, New Mexico, USA.
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Carlos Daniel Cadena
2Laboratorio de Biología Evolutiva de Vertebrados, Departamento de Ciencias Biológicas, Universidad de los Andes, Bogotá, Colombia.
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  • ORCID record for Carlos Daniel Cadena
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ABSTRACT

The Bogota Sunangel (Heliangelus zusii) was described based on a historical specimen lacking locality data as a striking–and potentially extinct– new species of hummingbird more than two decades ago. However, it was considered a dubious taxon by some researchers until a molecular study with strong species-level taxon sampling revealed its phylogenetic affinities and validated its status as a distinct species. We reanalysed existing mitochondrial DNA data together with a new data set sampling multiple populations of the Long-tailed Sylph (Aglaiocercus kingii), a species broadly distributed in the Andes of South America. In contrast to previous work, we found that H. zusii shares a haplotype with specimens of A. kingii from the Eastern Cordillera of Colombia, which is phylogenetically nested within a clade formed by populations of A. kingii from the Colombian Andes. These results suggest that H. zusii is not a distinct species, but is most likely the result of hybridization between a female A. kingii and a male of another hummingbird species. These findings highlight the importance of thorough taxonomic and geographic sampling when assessing the likelihood of hybrid origin of an organism, particularly in cases potentially involving wide-ranging species in areas where deep phylogeographic structure is likely.

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The copyright holder for this preprint is the author/funder, who has granted bioRxiv a license to display the preprint in perpetuity. It is made available under a CC-BY-NC 4.0 International license.
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Posted June 14, 2017.
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An extinct hummingbird species that never was: a cautionary tale about sampling issues in molecular phylogenetics
Jorge L. Pérez-Emán, Jhoniel Perdigón Ferreira, Natalia Gutiérrez-Pinto, Andrés M. Cuervo, Laura N. Céspedes, Christopher C. Witt, Carlos Daniel Cadena
bioRxiv 149898; doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/149898
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An extinct hummingbird species that never was: a cautionary tale about sampling issues in molecular phylogenetics
Jorge L. Pérez-Emán, Jhoniel Perdigón Ferreira, Natalia Gutiérrez-Pinto, Andrés M. Cuervo, Laura N. Céspedes, Christopher C. Witt, Carlos Daniel Cadena
bioRxiv 149898; doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/149898

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