Galliformes

Galliformes View in CoL View at ENA

The order Galliformes (landfowl and allies) contains 289 extant species, all of them with predominantly herbivorous diets ( Del Hoyo et al., 1994). In addition to their environmental variability, Galliformes exhibit a broad body size range, from the relatively small common quail, Coturnix coturnix Linnaeus, 1758 , weighing ~ 35 g, to the wild turkey, Meleagris gallopavo Linnaeus, 1758 , weighing ~ 5 kg. The phylogenetic relationships of Galliformes are among the best known within birds ( Braun et al., 2019). Phylogenetic hypotheses for the group were based initially on morphological data and have been revised and updated constantly with the implementation of molecular techniques ( Eo et al., 2009; Kimball et al., 2011; Hugall & Stuart-Fox, 2012; Wang et al., 2013, 2017; Hosner et al., 2015b, 2017; Stein et al., 2015; Braun et al., 2019; Mandiwana-Neudani et al., 2019; Hosner et al., 2020). All these studies have a broad consensus that establishes Galliformes as a monophyletic group divided into five families: Megapodidae (brush-turkeys and scrubfowl), Cracidae (curassows and guans), Numididae (guineafowl), Odontophoridae (New World quails) and Phasianidae (pheasants, Old World quails, grouse and turkeys). Nevertheless, there is not yet a complete phylogeny at the species level for this order ( Braun et al., 2019). For this reason, we used the software MESQUITE (Maddisson & Maddison, 2015) to build an informal supertree that integrates 77.8% of the species (225 species), taking into account the most complete calibrated phylogeny published at the moment ( Hugall & Stuart-Fox, 2012) complemented by information from later works ( Wang et al., 2013; Stein et al., 2015; Hosner et al., 2017).

We used fossil data to calibrate this Galliformes phylogenetic supertree. Palaeontological reports from Asia support the possible origin of crown Galliformes during the Late Eocene ( Mayr, 2009, 2017; Hwang et al., 2010), with subsequent dispersal to Europe, as evidenced by Sobniogallus Tomek et al., 2014 from the Early Oligocene of Poland ( Tomek et al., 2014). The earliest record of Megapodidae is Ngawupodius Boles & Ivison, 1999 from the Late Oligocene of Australia ( Boles & Ivison, 1999), although indisputable fossils are from Australian Plio-Pleistocene localities ( Mayr, 2017). Cracidae presents its oldest records in the Miocene of North America, as evidenced by Palaeonossax Wetmore, 1956 , although their recent distribution is constrained to the Neotropics. Palaeortyx Milne-Edwards, 1869 , from the Early Oligocene of Europe, evidences the presence of stem Phasianoidea at this time. Possibly, Phasianidae diversified throughout Asia during much of the Middle and Late Miocene, with the ancestors of Tetraonini colonizing North America during the Early Miocene, as attested by Rhegminornis Wetmore, 1943 from Florida ( Mayr, 2017). Finally, for taxonomic consistency, the nomenclature for the consensus tree was adapted according to Del Hoyo & Collar (2014).