Phylogeny and biogeography of Yellow‐headed and Blue‐fronted Parrots (Amazona ochrocephala and Amazona aestiva) with special reference to the South American taxa

Abstract

The Yellow‐headed Parrot (Amazona ochrocephala) has a broad Neotropical distribution, ranging from Mexico to the Amazon Basin, and a history of complex taxonomy and controversial species limits. Recent molecular analyses have started to clarify the taxonomic arrangement of the complex, but have not included a representative geographical sampling from South America. These studies have shown that the Yellow‐headed complex can be divided into three main lineages, and seems to be paraphyletic, due to the inclusion of the Blue‐fronted Parrot (Amazona aestiva) that occurs in central South America. Here we present a phylogenetic analysis based on mitochondrial DNA sequences of 45 representatives of the Yellow‐headed complex from South and Central America, plus 13 Blue‐fronted individuals from different localities in South America. Our analyses recover the three primary lineages found previously in the Yellow‐headed complex, show that there is genetic structure in the South American lineage, which can be divided into two well‐supported, closely related clades, and demonstrate that Blue‐fronted samples are distributed in both clades. Differentiation of South American Blue‐fronted and Yellow‐headed Parrot populations does not correspond to the plumage differences used to distinguish the Blue‐fronted Parrot from the Yellow‐headed Parrot, nor to plumage differences used to distinguish among South American Yellow‐headed subspecies. This suggests that traditional taxonomy based on plumage characters needs revision, and that this may be an interesting example of ongoing divergence‐with‐gene‐flow related to the forest/open area ecotone in southern Amazonia.