Furnarii

Relationships after Chesser (2004).

Discussion of Phylogenetic Relationships

There is a basal polytomy in Furnarii among three clades: Melanopareia (crescent-chests), a genus traditionally assigned to Rhinocryptidae (Irestedt et al. 2002; Chesser 2004), Thamnophilidae (typical antbirds) plus Conopophagidae (gnateaters), and remaining Furnarii (Irestedt et al. 2001, 2002; Chesser 2004; but see Barker et al. 2002, 2004 for a different placement of conopophagids). Thamnophilidae is a clade detached from Formicariidae (then just "antbirds") by Sibley and Ahlquist (1990). But even with thamnophilids removed, Formicariidae (ground antbirds) has proven to be paraphyletic. It is divided into two parts; one of them, ant-pittas, is apparently the sister group of the remaining Furnarii (though in some analyses it is the sister group of Rhinocryptidae, the tapaculos). The other part of Formicariidae, ant-thrushes, is sister to Furnariidae (ovenbirds) and Dendrocolaptidae (woodcreepers). (There is so far no formal name for either of these divisions of Formicariidae.) Furnariidae is paraphyletic to Dendrocolaptidae (Irestedt et al. 2002; Chesser 2004), and so is also divided into two groups, neither of which has a formal name. And there is a third group of Furnariidae, the odd genus Xenops, which is even closer to the woodcreepers (Irestedt et al. 2006). Nor are even the traditional antpittas monophyletic; one genus commonly assigned to the group,  Pittasoma, turns out to be a gnateater (Rice 2005a, b).

References

Barker, F. K., G. F. Barrowclough, and J. G. Groth. 2002. A phylogenetic hypothesis for passerine birds; Taxonomic and biogeographic implications of an analysis of nuclear DNA sequence data. Proc. R. Soc. Lond. B 269:295-308.

Barker, F. K., A. Cibois, P. Schikler, J. Feinstein, and J. Cracraft. 2004. Phylogeny and diversification of the largest avian radiation. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA 101:11040-11045.

Chesser, R. T. 2004. Molecular systematics of New World suboscine birds. Mol. Phylogen. Evol. 32:11-24.

Feduccia, A. 1973. Evolutionary trends in the Neotropical ovenbirds and woodhewers. Ornithol. Monogr. 13:1?69.

Irestedt, M., J. Fjelds?, and P. G. P. Ericson. 2006. Evolution of the ovenbird-woodcreeper assemblage (Aves: Furnariidae) ? major shifts in nest architecture and adaptive radiation. Journal of Avian Biology 37:261?272.

Irestedt, M., J. Fjelds?, U. S. Johansson, and P. G. P. Ericson. 2002. Systematic relationships and biogeography of the tracheophone suboscines (Aves: Passeriformes). Mol. Phylogen. Evol. 23:499-512.

Irestedt, M., U. S. Johansson, T. J. Parsons, and P. G. P. Ericson. 2001. Phylogeny of major lineages of suboscines (Passeriformes) analysed by nuclear DNA sequence data. J. Avian Biol. 32:15-25.

Krabbe, N. K. and Schulenberg, T. S. 2003. Family Formicariidae (Ground-antbirds). Pages 682?731 in Handbook of the Birds of the World. Vol. 8. Broadbills to Tapaculos. BirdLife International and Lynx Editions, Cambridge, UK and Barcelona.

Rice, N. H. 2005a. Phylogenetic relationships of antpitta genera (Passeriformes: Formicariidae). Auk 122(2):673-683.

Rice, N. H. 2005b. Further Evidence for Paraphyly of the Formicariidae (Passeriformes). Condor 107(4):910-915.

Ridgely, R. S. and G. Tudor. 1994. The Birds of South America. Volume 2. The Suboscine Passerines. University of Texas, Austin.

Sibley, C. G., and J. A. Ahlquist. 1990. Phylogeny and classification of birds, Yale U. Press, New Haven.

Skutch, A. F. 1996. Antbirds and Ovenbirds. University of Texas Press, Austin, TX.

Tubaro, P. L., D. A. Lijtmaer, M. G. Palacios, and C. Kopuchian. 2002. Adaptive modification of tail structure in relation to body mass and buckling in woodcreepers. Condor 104(2):281-296.