Ultraconserved elements support the elevation of a new avian family, Eurocephalidae, the white-crowned shrikes

In this study, we infer genus-level relationships within shrikes (Laniidae), crows (Corvidae), and their allies using ultraconserved elements (UCEs). We confirm previous results of the Crested Shrikejay (Platylophus galericulatus) as comprising its own taxonomic family and find strong support for its sister relationship to laniid shrikes. We also find strong support that the African-endemic genus Eurocephalus, which comprises two allopatric species (E. ruppelli and E. anguitimens), are not shrikes. We propose elevating the white-crowned shrikes to their own family, Eurocephalidae. , Sampling and laboratory methods 
Following the taxonomy of Gill et al. (2022), we collected genus-level UCE data for Corvidae, Laniidae, and their allies (Supplementary Material Table 1). In total, our dataset comprised 47 samples and every genus within Laniidae and Corvidae. We downloaded raw reads from recent, higher-level UCE studies of passerines (n=23; (Moyle et al. 2016, Oliveros et al. 2019, McCullough et al. 2022). For all other samples (n=24), we extracted DNA from ethanol- or frozen-preserved tissue samples loaned from natural history collections. However, for some rarely collected taxa, we relied on specimen toepad clippings (14% of samples, denoted in Supplementary Material Table 1). Because this source of genetic material is well known to be degraded, we treated samples derived from frozen or ethanol preserved samples differently than those derived from museum toepad clippings. For tissue-derived samples, we used the Qiagen DNeasy kit to extract genomic DNA and estimated fr..., fasta and Nexus files can be opened in a text editor, like BBedit. \".tre\" files can be viewed in FigTree.Â