A striking new species of leaf warbler from the Lesser Sundas as uncovered through morphology and genomics

Nathaniel S R Ng,Frank E Rheindt,Philippe Verbelen,Colin Trainor,Suparno Suparno,Elize Y X Ng,Dewi M Prawiradilaga,Hidayat Ashari

doi:10.1038/s41598-018-34101-7

Nathaniel S R Ng, Frank E Rheindt + Show 6 more

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https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-018-34101-7

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Abstract

Leaf warblers (Aves; Phylloscopidae) are a diverse clade of insectivorous, canopy-dwelling songbirds widespread across the Old World. The taxonomy of Australasian leaf warblers is particularly complex, with multiple species-level divergences between island taxa in the region requiring further scrutiny. We use a combination of morphology, bioacoustics, and analysis of thousands of genome-wide markers to investigate and describe a new species of Phylloscopus leaf warbler from the island of Rote in the Lesser Sundas, Indonesia. We show that this new Rote Leaf Warbler is morphologically and genomically highly distinct from its congenerics, but do not find vocal differentiation between different island taxa. We discuss the behaviour and ecology of this highly distinctive new species, and make recommendations about its conservation status. We believe this constitutes the first description of a novel bird species that is partly based on insights from massive amounts of genome-wide DNA markers.

Highlights

Leaf warblers (Aves; Phylloscopidae) are an Old World clade of insectivorous, canopy-dwelling songbirds widespread across Europe and Australasia, with some species occurring in Africa[1]
On the basis of our morphological, biometric, and genomic analyses, we here describe the unnamed population of leaf warbler from Rote Island as a new species: Phylloscopus rotiensis, species nova
We present strong evidence that the Rote Leaf Warbler is morphologically and biogeographically highly distinct from all other leaf warblers across Wallacea and beyond

Summary

Introduction

Leaf warblers (Aves; Phylloscopidae) are an Old World clade of insectivorous, canopy-dwelling songbirds widespread across Europe and Australasia, with some species occurring in Africa[1]. These active, constantly-moving birds are found in forest and woodland, where they glean insects from the foliage[1]. In December 2004, one of us (CT) was the first to report the presence of a leaf warbler from Rote when observing several birds on the Tapuafu peninsula in the northeast of the island (Fig. 1). The second field site was close to Bolatena village in the Tapuafu peninsula in northeastern Rote (10°35′26.21′′S, 123°15′31.91′′E; 22 m above sea level) (Fig. 1). We employ a combination of morphological and biometric comparisons, bioacoustic analyses, and phylogenetic methods (using both mitochondrial and genome-wide markers) to describe this new species of Phylloscopus leaf warbler from Rote

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