Lepidocolaptes albolineatus (Aves: Dendrocolaptidae) is a polytypic biological species including the following taxa: L. a. albolineatus occurring in the Guiana Area of Endemism (hereafter AE), L. a. duidae (Imeri AE), L. a. fuscicapillus and L. a. madeirae (both in the Rondônia AE), and L. a. layardi (Tapajós, Xingu, and Belém AEs). The main goals of the present study were: (1) review the validity and diagnoses of the taxa grouped under L. albolineatus based on a combination of morphological, vocal, and molecular characters, and (2) re-evaluate inter-specific limits between among those taxa. A total of 150 specimens deposited in Brazilian and North American collections were measured. In the molecular analysis a total of 940 bp of the mitochondrial gene ND2 belonging to 35 individuals representing all taxa of L. albolineatus was sequenced. PAUP 4.0 b 10 and MrBayes 3.1 were used to generate phylogenetic trees under parsimony, maximum likelihood, and Bayesian approaches. Morphological and molecular data strongly supported the existence of five natural populations (clades) within L. albolineatus: clade 1 (grouping populations from the Rondônia AE), clade 2 (including populations of the Belém, Xingu, and Tapajós AEs), clade 3 (including specimens from the Inambari AE), clade 4 (grouping specimens from the Imeri AE), and clade 5 (including specimens of the Guiana AE). All clades corresponded to already named taxa, except clade 3, which has no valid name yet since the name fuscicapillus is in fact applicable to clade 1, and therefore must be considered the senior synonymous of madeirae. The main genetic and morphological separation in L. albolineatus occurs between the nominate taxon (clade 5) and all remaining taxa and clades, although each clade recognized in the analysis can be regarded as a separate species under the General Lineage Species Concept, since they are all mutually diagnosed based on a combination of morphological, vocal, and genetic characters.
|
