Mitochondrial genomes of the bird genus Piranga: rates of sequence evolution, and discordance between the species tree and mitochondrial gene trees

We report the characteristics of the mitochondrial genomes of 22 individuals in the bird genus Piranga, representative of all currently recognized species in the genus (n = 11). Elements follow the standard avian mitogenome series, including two ribosomal RNA (rRNA) genes, 22 transfer RNA (tRNA) genes, 13 protein coding genes, and the mitochondrial control region. Gene trees assembled from 16 elements (non-tRNAs) varied greatly in topological concordance to the recognized species tree (based on thousands of nuclear loci), with no one gene tree precisely recovering all relationships in the genus.