POLYPHYLY OF THE BLACKBIRD GENUS AGELAIUS AND THE IMPORTANCE OF ASSUMPTIONS OF MONOPHYLY IN COMPARATIVE STUDIES

A phylogeny for Agelaius blackbirds was constructed using sequence data from an 890 base-pair (bp) region of the mitochondrial cytochrome-b gene in nine species of Agelaius and a single species from all but 1 of the 28 described blackbird genera and subgenera. The genus was found to be polyphyletic with the South American members of Agelaius more closely related to other South American blackbird genera. Application of bootstrap and jackknife manipulations supports this conclusion. That this relatively well-known genus is polyphyletic represents a warning to those attempting to construct phylogenies without first demonstrating monophyly of the ingroup. The conclusion that Agelaius is polyphyletic necessitates (1) the reinterpretation of previous studies that assumed monophyly and (2) the initiation of a variety of new comparative behavioral and ecological studies suggested by this finding.