East Asian allopatry and north Eurasian sympatry in Long‐tailed Tit lineages despite similar population dynamics during the late Pleistocene |
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| Authors: | Gang Song Ruiying Zhang Shane G DuBay Yanhua Qu Lu Dong Wenjuan Wang Yanyun Zhang David M Lambert Fumin Lei |
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| Institution: | 1. Key Laboratory of Zoological Systematics and Evolution, Institute of Zoology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China;2. Environmental Futures Research Institute, Griffith University, Nathan, Qld, Australia;3. Center for Developmental Biology, Institute of Genetics and Developmental Biology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China;4. Committee on Evolutionary Biology, University of Chicago, Chicago, IL, USA;5. Life Sciences Section, Integrative Research Center, Field Museum of Natural History, Chicago, IL, USA;6. Ministry of Education Key Laboratory for Biodiversity and Ecological Engineering, College of Life Sciences, Beijing Normal University, Beijing, China;7. Center for Watershed Ecology, Institute of Life Science, Nanchang University, Nanchang, China |
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| Abstract: | Eurasia is a large continent characterized by heterogeneous environments. Glacial cycles during the late Pleistocene have had variable impacts on the avifauna across Eurasia. Bird populations from South‐East Asia show stability through the Last Glacial Maximum (LGM), while populations from Europe exhibit evidence of post‐LGM expansion. We investigated the phylogeography of the Long‐tailed Tit (Aegithalos caudatus), which spans the longitudinal breadth of Eurasia to test how climatic history and regional topographical complexity affected populations and diversification within the species complex. Our results show that two lineages from central and southern China (lineages C and D) segregate geographically, while lineages across northern Eurasia (lineage A and B) show substantial sympatry. Bayesian estimates for the timing of diversification suggest that the four lineages diverged during the middle Pleistocene, splitting in parallel and undergoing concurrent demographic histories since divergence. A. caudatus lineages experienced similar and synchronous population size dynamics during glacial cycles before the LGM. We conclude that the difference in geo‐topologic complexity may be an important factor that led to the variation in secondary admixture between northern Eurasian and eastern Asian lineages. |
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