{"id":346,"date":"2015-05-26T10:36:57","date_gmt":"2015-05-26T14:36:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/people.clas.ufl.edu\/ebraun\/?page_id=346"},"modified":"2026-03-19T08:29:19","modified_gmt":"2026-03-19T12:29:19","slug":"bjls01","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/people.clas.ufl.edu\/ebraun\/publications\/bjls01\/","title":{"rendered":"A molecular phylogeny of the peacock-pheasants (Galliformes, Polyplectron spp.) indicates loss and reduction of ornamental traits and display behaviours"},"content":{"rendered":"\r\n
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A molecular phylogeny of the peacock-pheasants (Galliformes, Polyplectron spp.) indicates loss and reduction of ornamental traits and display behaviours<\/h1>\n\n\n\n

Biological Journal of the Linnean Society<\/em>, Vol. 73, pp. 187-198<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n

Link to\u00a0Biological Journal of the Linnean Society<\/em>\u00a0home page.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A molecular phylogeny of the peacock-pheasants (Galliformes,\u00a0Polyplectron<\/i>\u00a0spp.) indicates loss and reduction of ornamental traits and display behaviours<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Rebecca T. Kimball*<\/sup>,<\/wbr>\u00a0Edward L. Braun,<\/wbr>\u00a0J. David Ligon,<\/wbr>\u00a0Vittorio Lucchini,<\/wbr>\u00a0and<\/wbr>\u00a0Ettore Randi<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n

Department of Biology, University of New Mexico, Albuquerque, NM, 87131, USA (R.T.K., E.L.B., J.D.L); Departments of Evolution, Ecology and Organismal Biology (R.T.K.) and Plant Biology (E.L.B.), Ohio State University, Columbus, OH, 43210, USA; Istituto Nazionale per la Fauna Selvatica, via C\u00e0 Fornacetta 9, 40064, Ozzano dell Emilia, (BO), Italy (V.L., E.R.);
\nE.L.B.<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0R.T.K.<\/a>\u00a0are currently in the Department of Zoology at the University of Florida.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n

The South-east Asian pheasant\u00a0<\/sup>genus\u00a0Polyplectron<\/i>\u00a0is comprised\u00a0<\/sup>of six or seven species\u00a0<\/sup>which are characterized by\u00a0<\/sup>ocelli (ornamental eye-spots) in\u00a0<\/sup>all but one species,\u00a0<\/sup>though the sizes and distribution\u00a0<\/sup>of ocelli vary among species.\u00a0<\/sup>All\u00a0Polyplectron<\/i>\u00a0species\u00a0<\/sup>have lateral displays,\u00a0<\/sup>but species with ocelli\u00a0<\/sup>also display frontally to females,\u00a0<\/sup>with feathers held erect and\u00a0<\/sup>spread to clearly display\u00a0<\/sup>the ocelli. The two least\u00a0<\/sup>ornamented\u00a0Polyplectron<\/i>\u00a0<\/sup>species, one of which completely\u00a0<\/sup>lacks ocelli, have been considered\u00a0<\/sup>the primitive members of the\u00a0<\/sup>genus, implying that ocelli\u00a0<\/sup>are derived. We examined\u00a0<\/sup>this hypothesis phylogenetically\u00a0<\/sup>using complete mitochondrial\u00a0<\/sup>cytochrome\u00a0b<\/i>\u00a0and control\u00a0<\/sup>region sequences, as well as\u00a0<\/sup>sequences from intron G in the nuclear\u00a0<\/sup>ovomucoid gene, and found\u00a0<\/sup>that the two least ornamented species\u00a0<\/sup>are in fact the most recently\u00a0<\/sup>evolved. Thus, the absence\u00a0<\/sup>and reduction of ocelli and other\u00a0<\/sup>ornamental traits in\u00a0Polyplectron<\/i>\u00a0are\u00a0<\/sup>recent losses. The only\u00a0<\/sup>variable that may correlate\u00a0<\/sup>with the reduction in ornamentation\u00a0<\/sup>is habitat, as the two\u00a0<\/sup>less-ornamented species inhabit montane\u00a0<\/sup>regions, while the ornamented species\u00a0<\/sup>inhabit lowland regions.\u00a0<\/sup>The implications of these findings\u00a0<\/sup>are discussed in light of models\u00a0<\/sup>of sexual selection. The\u00a0<\/sup>phylogeny is not congruent with\u00a0<\/sup>current geographical distributions,\u00a0<\/sup>and there is little evidence\u00a0<\/sup>that Pleistocene sea level\u00a0<\/sup>changes promoted speciation in this\u00a0<\/sup>genus. Maximum likelihood\u00a0<\/sup>and maximum parsimony analyses of\u00a0<\/sup>cytochrome\u00a0b<\/i>\u00a0sequences suggest\u00a0<\/sup>that the closest relatives\u00a0<\/sup>of\u00a0Polyplectron<\/i>\u00a0are probably\u00a0<\/sup>the peafowl and the argus pheasants\u00a0<\/sup>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

E.R. and V.L. were supported by the Italian Institute of Wildlife Biology (INFS). Some DNA sequencing was performed in the NSF supported (RIMI programme grant HRD-9550649) Molecular Biology Facility at the University of New Mexico.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n

*<\/sup>\u00a0Corresponding author<\/p>\n\n\n\r\n\t\t\t<\/div>\r\n\t\t<\/div>\r\n\t<\/div>\r\n<\/section>\r\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"","protected":false},"author":544,"featured_media":0,"parent":19,"menu_order":29,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"featured_post":"","footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"class_list":["post-346","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/people.clas.ufl.edu\/ebraun\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/346","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/people.clas.ufl.edu\/ebraun\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/people.clas.ufl.edu\/ebraun\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/people.clas.ufl.edu\/ebraun\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/544"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/people.clas.ufl.edu\/ebraun\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=346"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/people.clas.ufl.edu\/ebraun\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/346\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":452,"href":"https:\/\/people.clas.ufl.edu\/ebraun\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/346\/revisions\/452"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/people.clas.ufl.edu\/ebraun\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/19"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/people.clas.ufl.edu\/ebraun\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=346"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}