Data from: Diversification and dispersal in the Americas revealed by new phylogenies of the wrens and allies (Passeriformes: Certhioidea)

The passerine superfamily Certhioidea lacks a complete phylogeny despite
decades of recognition as a clade and extensive systematic work within all
its constituent families. Here, we inferred a near-complete species level
phylogeny of Certhioidea from a molecular supermatrix, including the first
comprehensive sampling of the wrens (Troglodytidae), and used this
phylogeny to infer its biogeographic and diversification histories. We
also inferred an expanded phylogeny including nearly 100 putative
phylospecies previously documented in the literature, and we found that
including this diversity had notable impacts on the inferred evolutionary
history of Certhioidea. This phylospecies-level tree documented a few
instances of species paraphyly, some previously described in the
literature and some novel. We found that Certhioidea originated largely in
Eurasia and dispersed into North America five times in the last 20 million
years, including at the origin of the “New World certhioids”, wrens and
gnatcatchers, a clade herein named Orthourae. After this initial dispersal
event, both wrens and gnatcatchers diversified extensively across the
hemisphere, with both lineages repeatedly crossing between continents.
However, we detected no notable impact of the formation of the Isthmus of
Panama on the frequency of dispersal events between North and South
America. The inclusion of phylospecies altered this biogeographic
inference in some portions of the tree but overall was largely consistent.
With species-level sampling, we found that diversification rates within
Certhioidea were largely constant through time with a detectable
deceleration toward the present. By contrast, phylospecies-level sampling
recovered a different diversification history with a significant rate
increase at the crown node of Orthourae after dispersing into the Americas
and increased speciation rates, particularly within the genera Polioptila
and Henicorhina. This largely resolved phylogeny for Certhioidea has
yielded important insights into the evolutionary history of this group and
provides a framework for future comparative work on this fascinating
clade.