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| Negros Fruit Dove Ptilinopus arcanus in Nash, Harrington, Zyskowski, Near & Prum, 2024. DOI: 10.1111/ibi.13305 |
Abstract
The Negros Fruit Dove Ptilinopus arcanus is an enigmatic bird known only from a single specimen collected on Negros Island, Philippines, in 1953. We extracted and sequenced ultra-conserved elements from historical toe-pad samples of the type specimen of P. arcanus and 27 other species of ptilinopine doves to investigate the species status and phylogenetic relationships of this taxon. We establish that P. arcanus represents a valid species, resolve its phylogenetic position at the base of the radiation of ‘core’ Ptilinopus fruit doves, and estimate that P. arcanus diverged from its most recent common ancestor several million years before Negros Island emerged from the seafloor. We also perform an ancestral range reconstruction to evaluate the effect of different altitudinal preferences on the putative historical range of this species, and we discuss how these findings can inform future efforts to relocate and potentially conserve this species.
Keywords: ancestral range reconstruction, historical DNA, Negros Fruit Dove, Philippines, phylogeny, Ptilinopus arcanus, ultra-conserved elements
John A. Nash, Richard C. Harrington, Kristof Zyskowski, Thomas J. Near and Richard O. Prum. 2024. Species Status and Phylogenetic Relationships of the enigmatic Negros Fruit Dove (Ptilinopus arcanus). Ibis. DOI: 10.1111/ibi.13305
