Under Construction

Icteridae

Scott Lanyon
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taxon links [up-->]Psarocolius [up-->]Curaeus [up-->]Chrysomus [up-->]Cacicus [up-->]Dives [up-->]Quiscalus [up-->]Xanthocephalus xanthocephalus [up-->]Dolichonyx oryzivorus [up-->]Xanthopsar flavus [up-->]Agelaius [up-->]Nesopsar nigerrimus [up-->]Agelasticus [up-->]Icterus [up-->]Amblycercus holosericeus [up-->]Gymnomystax mexicanus [up-->]Sturnella [up-->]Agelaioides [up-->]Pseudoleistes [up-->]Molothrus [down<--]'Nine-primaried oscines' Interpreting the tree
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This tree diagram shows the relationships between several groups of organisms.

The root of the current tree connects the organisms featured in this tree to their containing group and the rest of the Tree of Life. The basal branching point in the tree represents the ancestor of the other groups in the tree. This ancestor diversified over time into several descendent subgroups, which are represented as internal nodes and terminal taxa to the right.

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You can click on the root to travel down the Tree of Life all the way to the root of all Life, and you can click on the names of descendent subgroups to travel up the Tree of Life all the way to individual species.

For more information on ToL tree formatting, please see Interpreting the Tree or Classification. To learn more about phylogenetic trees, please visit our Phylogenetic Biology pages.

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Tree from Lanyon and Omland (1999)
Containing group: 'Nine-primaried oscines'

Introduction

The New World Blackbird clade (Icteridae) consists of 97 species in 27 genera, distributed throughout the western hemisphere. This clade has been of great interest to evolutionary biologists and behavioral ecologists because of the broad range of morphologies and behaviors exhibited.  If the archetypical songbird species is monogamous, sexually monochromatic, monomorphic in size, territorial, breeds at age one year, builds a cup-shaped nest, and has a species-specific song, then the New World Blackbird clade contains not only "typical" song bird species, but also species demonstrating a wide range of interesting morphological and behavioral departures from this norm.  Within the Icteridae, various species:

This clade is the subject of an NSF funded "Assembling the Tree of Life" grant (DEB-0316092) to Keith Barker (University of Minnesota), Kevin Burns (San Diego State University), John Klicka (University of Nevada-Las Vegas), Scott Lanyon (University of Minnesota), and Irby Lovette (Cornell University).  Our goal is to sequence multiple genes for every species of "nine-primaried oscine" and to construct a robust phylogeny from these data.  This page will be updated once this research has been completed.

Other Names for Icteridae

References

Cadena, C.D., A.M. Cuervo, and S.M. Lanyon. 2004. Phylogenetic relationships of the Red-bellied Grackle (Icteridae: Hypopyrrhus pyrohypogaster) inferred from mitochondrial DNA sequence data. Condor 106:664-670 .

Johnson, K.P. and S.M. Lanyon. 1999. Molecular systematics of the grackles and allies, and the effect of additional sequence (cyt b and nd2). Auk 116:759-768.

Klicka, J., K.P. Johnson, and S.M. Lanyon. 2000. New World nine-primaried oscine relationships: Constructing a mitochondrial DNA framework. Auk 117:321-336.

Lanyon, S.M. 1994. Polyphyly of the blackbird genus Agelaius and the importance of assumptions of monophyly in comparative studies. Evolution 48:679-693.

Lanyon, S.M. and K.E. Omland. 1999. A molecular phylogeny of the blackbirds (Icteridae): Five lineages revealed by cytochrome-b sequence data. Auk 116:629-639.

Lowther, P.E., R. Fraga, T.S. Schulenberg, and S.M. Lanyon. 2004. Nomenclatural solution for a polyphyletic Agelaius. Bulletin of the British Ornithologists’ Club 124:171-177.

Omland, K.E., S.M. Lanyon, and S. Fritz. 1999. A molecular phylogeny of the New World Orioles (Icterus): The importance of dense taxon sampling. Molecular Phylogenetics and Evolution 12:224-239.

Orians, G.H. 1985. Blackbirds of the Americas. Univ. of Washington Press, Seattle.

Price, J. and S.M. Lanyon. 2002. A robust phylogeny of the oropendolas: Polyphyly revealed by mitochondrial sequence data. Auk 119:335-348.

Price, J. and S. M. Lanyon. R2002. Reconstructing the evolution of complex bird song in the oropendolas. Evolution 56(7):1514-1529.

Price, J. and S. M. Lanyon. Patterns of song evolution and sexual selection in the oropendolas and caciques. Behavioral Ecology 15:485-497.

Price, J. and S. M. Lanyon. 2004. Song and mtDNA identify congruent but novel affinities of the Green Oropendola Auk 121:224-229.

Title Illustrations
Click on an image to view larger version & data in a new window
Click on an image to view larger version & data in a new window
Scientific Name Agelaius phoeniceus
Location Lino Lakes, MN
Specimen Condition Live Specimen
Identified By Scott M. Lanyon
Behavior Singing and displaying on territory
Sex Male
Life Cycle Stage adult
Image Use creative commons This media file is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial License - Version 3.0.
Copyright © Scott Lanyon
Scientific Name Xanthocephalus xanthocephalus
Location Hugo, Minnesota
Specimen Condition Live Specimen
Identified By Scott M. Lanyon
Sex Male
Life Cycle Stage adult
Image Use creative commons This media file is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial License - Version 3.0.
Copyright © Scott Lanyon
Scientific Name Icterus galbula
Location Lino Lakes, MN
Specimen Condition Live Specimen
Identified By Scott M. Lanyon
Sex Male
Life Cycle Stage adult
Image Use creative commons This media file is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial License - Version 3.0.
Copyright © Scott Lanyon
Scientific Name Cacicus cela
Location Brazil
Specimen Condition Live Specimen
Identified By Arthur Grosset
Source Yellow-rumped Cacique (Cacicus cela)
Copyright © 2006 Arthur Grosset
Scientific Name Sturnella superciliaris
Location Brazil
Specimen Condition Live Specimen
Identified By Arthur Grosset
Source White-browed Blackbird (Sturnella superciliaris)
Copyright © 2004 Arthur Grosset
About This Page

The authors thank Arthur Grosset, Giuliano Gerra & Silvio Sommazzi for making their photographs available for this project.

Scott Lanyon
University of Minnesota, St. Paul, Minnesota, USA

Correspondence regarding this page should be directed to Scott Lanyon at

Page: Tree of Life Icteridae. Authored by Scott Lanyon. The TEXT of this page is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution License - Version 3.0. Note that images and other media featured on this page are each governed by their own license, and they may or may not be available for reuse. Click on an image or a media link to access the media data window, which provides the relevant licensing information. For the general terms and conditions of ToL material reuse and redistribution, please see the Tree of Life Copyright Policies.

Citing this page:

Lanyon, Scott. 2006. Icteridae. Version 21 October 2006 (under construction). http://tolweb.org/Icteridae/67292/2006.10.21 in The Tree of Life Web Project, http://tolweb.org/

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For a more detailed explanation of the different ToL page types, have a look at the Structure of the Tree of Life page.

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