SYRINGEAL CHARACTERS USED IN ASSESSING THE EVOLUTIONARY HISTORY OF FURNARIIDAE (AVES, PASSERIFORMES)

KOPUCHIAN, CECILIA; TUBARO, PABLO LUIS

Veracruz, México

Congreso; IV Congreso Norteamericano de Ornitología; 2006

American Ornithologists’ Union, Cooper Ornithological Society, Wilson Ornithological Society

Furnariidae represents a group of Neotropical birds exceptionally diverse which are closely related to Dendrocolaptidae. Both groups have two pairs of intrinsic syringeal muscles, a character that is absent in other suboscine passeriforms. Moreover, the monophily of Dendrocolaptidae has been based on morphological synapomorphies including the presence of “horns” in a cartilaginous syringeal structure named Processus vocalis. These two families have been traditionaly considered, together with Formicaridae and Rhinocryptidae, as members of the tracheophone group because their syrinx is placed on the trachea. Given the importance that the syringeal morphological characters had in the clasic studies of the systematics of this group, the objetive of this study was to analyze the phylogenetic relationships of the furnariids and sister groups through the cladistic analysis of these syringeal characters. We analise 32 morphological characters of the syrinx in a parsimony analysis using TNT software. We found that the syringeal characters analyzed were not enough to resolve the internal phylogenetic relationships of Furnariidae in the subfamilies that are traditionally recognised. However, Dendrocolaptidae forms a strongly supported monophyletic group included in Furnariidae, and genus Geositta is closely related with it, in concordance with some molecular phylogenies that have been recently published.