Molecular Phylogeny And Evolution Of 23 Species Birds (Aves: Passeriformes) Based On 12S RRNA Gene

The genetic divergence and phylogeny of 23 species Passerine oscines were assessed by mitochondrial DNA sequence comparisons in this study using 23 species(20 species from this study and 3 species download from GeneBank) from 7 songbirds families and one outgroup representative. We compared about 500 nucleotides from mitochondrial gene encoding 12S rRNA and constructed the homology tree and phylogeny tree. The results we got from this study were:1. The Emberizidae was the most ancestral split among the 7 families (Emberizidae, Paradoxornithidae, Aegithalidae, Paridae, Sylviidae, Turdidae, Muscicapidae), then was the split consist of Muscicapidae and Turdidae, next were splits Paridae and Paradoxornithidae, the last split was the clade consist of Sylviidae and Aegithalidae.2. Some species of the Turdidae, such as Luscinia , Tarsiger and Phoenicurus were clustered with the Muscicapidae as one clade, we suspect they should be include in the Muscicapidae.3. Aegithalos was not closely related with Paridae, So we think it was not property that some taxonomist placed the Aegithalos into the Paridae. The Aegithalos was suggested closely related with genus Acrocephalus (Aves: Sylviidae) and was proposed to be a genera in Sylviidae.4. Paradoxomis webbianus (Aves: Paradoxornithidae) was a single clade in phylogeny tree, it was more ancestral than the group comprising Sylviidae and Aegithalidae, but more developmental than the Emberizidae and Paridae groups.5. In our phylogenetic analysis the Turdus naumanni (Aves: Turdidae) and the Locustella lanceolata (Aves: Sylviidae) were clusterd together as one clade which was the sister group of the Emberizidae, they were homogenetic with Emberizidae, but isolated from Turdidae and Sylviidae.