Genus Malurus Research Articles

Ecology and breeding biology of a tropical bird, the Lovely Fairy-Wren (Malurus amabilis)

ABSTRACTThe Lovely Fairy-Wren (Malurus amabilis) is endemic to the wet tropics of Australia and is one of 11 species in the genus Malurus. Despite the large number of studies on fairy-wrens, little is known about the Lovely Fairy-Wren. This study provides the first detailed description of its ecology, behaviour, and breeding biology. Lovely Fairy-Wrens displayed breeding behaviour characteristic of tropical birds, with groups maintaining territories and breeding year-round, small clutch size (two to three eggs), long juvenile dependence (2 months) and high adult breeder survival (86%). They breed cooperatively, and groups formed when male (but not female) offspring delayed dispersal and remained in their natal group as subordinates. Groups were typically small (2.5 ± 0.8 individuals), possibly because productivity was low: 29% of the monitored groups produced at least one fledgling per year. Males provided high levels of parental care and this, together with low extra-pair courtship and petal displays, suggests that this species may not be as promiscuous as other fairy-wrens. Unlike other Australian fairy-wrens, males maintained their brightly coloured adult plumage year-round after initial acquisition. This lack of seasonal moult into dull plumage, coupled with the unusually colourful plumage of females in this species, suggests that the impact of natural selection on the plumage colour of both sexes may be lower in this species than in their congeners. We discuss similarities and differences in life-history and morphological traits between the Lovely Fairy-Wren and other Malurus species.

Production of plumage ornaments among males and females of two closely related tropical passerine bird species

The evolution of elaborate secondary sexual traits (i.e., ornaments) is well‐studied in males but less so in females. Similarity in the appearance of ornaments between males and females supports the view that female ornaments arise as a neutral byproduct of selection on male traits due to genetic correlation between sexes, but recent research suggests an adaptive function of female ornaments in at least some contexts. Information on the degree to which production of ornaments differs between the sexes can shed light on these alternative perspectives. We therefore characterized the structural underpinnings of melanin‐based plumage production in males and females of two closely related passerine bird species (genus Malurus). Importantly, both ornamented and unornamented phenotypes in each sex are present between these two species, providing an opportunity to test the null expectation of equivalent modes of production in male and female ornamented phenotypes. In Malurus alboscapulatus, ornamented females are qualitatively similar to males, but we describe a distinctive ornamented female phenotype that differs from that of males in lacking a blue sheen and in lower feather barbule density. In M. melanocephalus, unornamented males and females are also similar in appearance, and we describe a similarity between unornamented phenotypes of males and females in both color and underlying feather barbule structure and pigment composition. Unornamented male M. melanocephalus can flexibly transition to the ornamented phenotype in weeks, and we found extreme differences in color and feather structure between these two alternative male phenotypes. These results contradict the idea that female ornaments have evolved in this system following a simple switch to male‐like plumage by demonstrating greater complexity in the production of the ornamented phenotype in males than in females.

Subtle benefits of cooperation to breeding males of the Red-backed Fairywren

ABSTRACT Cooperative breeding is a phenomenon whereby breeding and nonbreeding individuals collectively provision young. Nonbreeding group members (“helpers”) may gain indirect and/or direct fitness benefits by breeding in a group, but there has been conflicting evidence regarding the benefits to breeders. In fact, the presence of helpers may sometimes be detrimental to aspects of breeder fitness. For example, in some species of the chiefly Australian genus Malurus, breeding males with helpers have lower within-pair paternity than do males without helpers. Additionally, indirect benefits to breeding males are often limited by low relatedness to their helpers due to high extrapair paternity rates, and helpers often appear to have minimal impact on breeder reproductive success. However, the presence of helpers may allow breeding males to shift their behaviors from guarding and provisioning young to alternative behaviors that affect other components of fitness, such as extraterritory forays (which might incr...

Speciation in chestnut-shouldered fairy-wrens (Malurus spp.) and rapid phenotypic divergence in variegated fairy-wrens (Malurus lamberti): A multilocus approach

The chestnut-shouldered fairy-wrens comprise a subgroup of four species in the genus Malurus (Passeriformes: Maluridae). Collectively, they are widespread across the Australian continent but phenotypic variation is strongly structured geographically in just one species, M. lamberti. Earlier phylogenetic analyses of this group have been limited to one or two individuals for each species and have not represented all currently recognised subspecies of M. lamberti. Historically, the taxonomy and nomenclature of the M. lamberti complex has been debated, in part because of morphological similarities among its subspecies and another member of the group, M. amabilis. We reconstructed the phylogeny of all four species of chestnut-shouldered fairy-wrens including all four subspecies of M. lamberti using a mitochondrial gene (ND2), five anonymous nuclear loci and three nuclear introns. Phylogenetic analysis of the mitochondrial ND2 gene nests M. amabilis within M. lamberti rendering the latter paraphyletic. Individual nuclear gene trees failed to reliably resolve each of the species boundaries or the phylogenetic relationships found in the mtDNA tree. When combined, however, a strongly supported overall topology was resolved supporting the monophyly of M. lamberti and its sister species relationship to M. amabilis. Current subspecific taxonomy of M. lamberti was not concordant with all evolutionary lineages of M. lamberti, nominotypical M. l. lamberti being the only subspecies recovered as a monophyletic group from mtDNA. Some genetic structuring is evident and potential barriers to gene flow are discussed.

A Species Tree for the Australo-Papuan Fairy-wrens and Allies (Aves: Maluridae)

We explored the efficacy of species tree methods at the family level in birds, using the Australo-Papuan Fairy-wrens (Passeriformes: Maluridae) as a model system. Fairy-wrens of the genus Malurus are known for high intensities of sexual selection, resulting in some cases in rapid speciation. This history suggests that incomplete lineage sorting (ILS) of neutrally evolving loci could be substantial, a situation that could compromise traditional methods of combining loci in phylogenetic analysis. Using 18 molecular markers (5 anonymous loci, 7 exons, 5 introns, and 1 mitochondrial DNA locus), we show that gene tree monophyly across species could be rejected for 16 of 18 loci, suggesting substantial ILS at the family level in these birds. Using the software Concaterpillar, we also detect three statistically distinct clusters of gene trees among the 18 loci. Despite substantial variation in gene trees, species trees constructed using four different species tree estimation methods (BEST, BUCKy, and STAR) were generally well supported and similar to each other and to the concatenation tree, with a few mild discordances at nodes that could be explained by rapid and recent speciation events. By contrast, minimizing deep coalescences produced a species tree that was topologically more divergent from those of the other methods as measured by multidimensional scaling of trees. Additionally, gene and species trees were topologically more similar in the BEST analysis, presumably because of the species tree prior employed in BEST which appropriately assumes that gene trees are correlated with each other and with the species tree. Among the 18 loci, we also discovered 102 independent indel markers, which also proved phylogenetically informative, primarily among genera, and displayed a ∼4-fold bias towards deletions. As suggested in earlier work, the grasswrens (Amytornis) are sister to the rest of the family and the emu-wrens (Stipiturus) are sister to fairy-wrens (Malurus, Clytomyias). Our study shows that ILS is common at the family level in birds yet, despite this, species tree methods converge on broadly similar results for this family.

A multigene phylogeny examining evolutionary and ecological relationships in the Australo-papuan wrens of the subfamily Malurinae (Aves)

Nucleotide sequences from four mitochondrial genes and three nuclear introns were used to examine phylogenetic relationships within the Australo-papuan fairy-wrens (Passeriformes: Maluridae: Malurinae). A well-resolved and well-supported phylogenetic hypothesis of all species in the subfamily was generated. The tree contained three clades corresponding to groups with similar plumages previously identified in earlier studies: the “bi-color,” “blue,” and “chestnut-shouldered” groups. The genus Malurus was not monophyletic –Malurusgrayi formed a clade with two New Guinean genera Sipodotus and Clytomyias. We recommend M. grayi be reclassified into the genus Chenorhamphus Oustalet 1898. One other taxonomic change is recommended based on the large genetic distance between the two subspecies of Chenorhamphus grayi – the elevation of C. g.campbelli to specific status (= C. campbelli). Although the family Maluridae appears to have had its origins in Australia, the DNA data supports a New Guinean origin for the Malurini (Sipodotus, Clytomyias, Chenorhamphus, Malurus).

A predator-elicited vocalisation in the Variegated Fairy-wren (Malurus lamberti)

We document a previously undescribed vocalisation in the Variegated Fairy-wren (Malurus lamberti), the Type II song, which is given in response to the calls of a specific avian predator. We used playbacks of five species of both predators and non-predators to determine which species most commonly elicit Type II songs. Calls of Grey Butcherbirds (Cracticus torquatus) were the only stimuli to elicit Type II songs. Two other species in the genus Malurus, the Splendid Fairy-wren (M. splendens) and the Superb Fairy-wren (M. cyaneus), are also known to sing Type II songs in response to the calls of specific avian predators. In all these species, Type II songs may function as displays to conspecifics. This study highlights the possibility that predator-elicited display behaviour may be more widespread in the genus Malurus than was previously recognised.

The Relationships of the Australo-Papuan Fairy-Wrens as Indicated by DNA-DNA Hybridization

The systematic relationships of the genus Malurus were examined by comparing the radioiodine-labelled ('iSI) single copy DNA sequences of the Variegated Fairy-wren Malurus lamberti with the DNAs of thirty-seven other species of oscine birds. Malurus lamberti was found to be most closely related to other species of Malurus, and to Stipiturus, Amytornis, the acanthizine thornbills and scrubwrens, and the honeyeaters, in that order. Malurus is not closely related to the sylviine warblers, the timaliine babblers, or the muscicapine flycatchers.

The Behavioural Affinities of the Blue Wrens of the GenusMalurus

SummaryThere are few definite morphological characters which can be used to separate the flycatchers, thrushes, warblers, and babblers, and these are often grouped within the Muscicapidae, but by using a group of behavioural characters it seems possible to separate the babblers, here regarded as a family, the Timaliidae, from the others. If these characters are used the Blue Wrens of the genus Malurus would appear to be separated from the Australasian warblers of the Malurinae. Species of Malurus show social behaviour unlike that of the Muscicapidae but similar to that of the Timaliidae. The morphological characters of Malurus do not link it with any particular subfamily of the Muscicapidae, and all the characters, with the exception of the seasonal change of plumage in the male, can be found in one or other species of the Timaliidae. It is suggested that Malurus and the related genera, Todopsis, Chenorhamphus, Clytomyias, Stipiturus, and Lamprolia, should be separated from the Malurinae and provisionally placed with the Timaliidae.

Notes upon the plumage of the adult males in certain species of the genus Malurus

Notes upon the plumage of the adult males in certain species of the genus Malurus