Evolution of Dendrocolaptes platyrostris (Aves: Furnariidae) between the South American open vegetation corridor and the Atlantic forest

The open vegetation corridor of South America is a region dominated by savanna biomes. It contains forests, i.e. riverine forests, that may act as corridors for rainforest specialist between the open vegetation corridor and its neighboring biomes, the Amazonian and Atlantic forests. A prediction for this scenario is that populations of rainforest specialists in the open vegetation corridor and in the forested biomes show no significant genetic divergence. We addressed this hypothesis by studying plumage and genetic variation of the Planalto woodcreeper Dendrocolaptes platyrostris Spix (1824) (Aves: Furnariidae), a forest specialist that occurs in both the open habitat and in the Atlantic forest. Our questions are: (1) is there any evidence of genetic continuity between populations of the open habitat and the Atlantic forest? and (2) is plumage variation congruent with patterns of neutral genetic structure or with ecological factors related to habitat type? We used cytochrome b and mtDNA...南美洲开阔植被廊道是一片以稀树草原生物群系（savanna biomes）为主导的区域。该区域内分布有森林，即河岸林，这些森林可作为雨林特化物种（rainforest specialist）在开阔植被廊道与邻近的亚马逊森林、大西洋森林这两类生物群系之间迁移的廊道。针对该情景的一项预测为：开阔植被廊道与森林生物群系中的雨林特种种群之间未出现显著的遗传分化（genetic divergence）。本研究以同时栖息于开阔生境与大西洋森林的森林特化物种——普拉塔诺旋木雀（Planalto woodcreeper）*Dendrocolaptes platyrostris* Spix（1824）（鸟纲：灶鸟科）为研究对象，通过分析其羽色与遗传变异来验证这一假说。本研究旨在解答两个核心问题：（1）开阔生境种群与大西洋森林种群之间是否存在遗传连续性的证据？（2）羽色变异是否与中性遗传结构模式相符，抑或是与生境类型相关的生态因素相关？我们采用了细胞色素b（cytochrome b）与线粒体DNA（mtDNA）……