Extensive in situ radiation of feather lice on tinamous

Tinamous host the highest generic diversity of lice of any group of birds, as well as hosting representatives of all four avian feather louse ecomorphs. Although the generic diversity of tinamou feather lice is well documented, few attempts have been made to reconstruct the phylogenetic relationships among these lice. To test whether tinamou feather lice form a monophyletic group as a whole, we used whole genome sequencing to estimate a higher-level phylogeny of tinamou feather lice, together with a broad diversity of other avian feather louse groups. In total, we analyzed sequences from over 1000 genes for 48 genera of avian lice using both concatenated and coalescent approaches to estimate the phylogeny of this diverse group of avian feather lice. Although the body louse ecomorph of tinamou feather lice formed a monophyletic group, they did not strictly form a monophyletic group together with the other three ecomorphs of tinamou feather lice. In particular, a clade comprised of severa...