User:GeekyEnki/sandbox/Bird of prey

Cladogram
This cladogram is my best effort for visually depicting how different clades of birds are considered birds of prey vis-a-vis polyphyletic assemblages.

Heavily borrowed from Telluraves.

Research (WIP)
"The non-monophyly of the birds of prey at the deepest branches of the Australaves and Afroaves radiations suggests that the common ancestor of core landbirds may have been an apex predator, followed by two losses of the raptorial trait. Seriema at the deepest branch of Australaves could be considered to belong to a raptorial taxon because they kill vertebrate prey (94) and are the sole living relatives of the extinct giant “terror birds,” apex predators during the Paleogene (95, 96). The deepest branches after Accipitriformes and owl among the Afroaves, the mousebirds and cuckoo-roller, have Eocene relatives with raptor-like feet (97), and the cuckoo-roller specializes on chameleon prey (98). This suggests that losses of the predatory phenotype were gradual across successive divergences of each of the two core landbird radiations. More broadly, the Columbea and Passerea clades appear to have many ecologically driven convergent traits that have led previous studies to group them into supposed monophyletic taxa (8, 17, 25). These convergences include the footpropelled diving trait of grebes in Columbea with loons and cormorants (15) in Passerea, the wading-feeding trait of flamingos in Columbea with ibises and egrets (24, 99) in Passerea, and pigeons and sandgrouse in Columbea with shorebirds (killdeer) in Passerea (24). These long-known trait and morphological alliances suggest that some of the traditional nongenomic trait classifications are based on polyphyletic assemblages." http://science.sciencemag.org/content/346/6215/1320

Although a morphological study ( Livezey and Zusi 2007 ) recovered a monophyletic order Falconiformes consisting of five traditional families (Falconidae, Accipitridae, Pandionidae, Sagittaridae, and Cathartidae), none of the molecular studies that have included all five groups has found this relationship ( Cracraft et al. 2004 ; Ericson et al. 2006 ; Hackett et al. 2008 ; Pacheco et al. 2011 ). We could not recover a sister relationship between Strigiformes and either or both of Falconidae and Accipitridae. This is consistent with previous molecular studies ( Sibley and Ahlquist 1990 ; Gibb et al. 2007 ; Hackett et al. 2008 ; Pratt et al. 2009 ; Pacheco et al. 2011 ; McCormack et al. 2013 ), suggesting that such a relationship is not correct. Hackett et al. (2008) found that Falconidae was closely related to a clade of Passeriformes and Psittaciformes (parrots). A similar relationship of Falconidae and Passeriformes–Psittaciformes clade was recovered by some studies primarily based on nuclear introns ( Wang et al. 2012 ) and retroposons ( Suh et al. 2011 ). We did not find a Falconidae/Psittaciformes relationship in our analyses, neither with Bayesian ( fig. 2 ) nor ML ( fig. 1 ) analyses.

Falconidae (falcons) appear to have shared a common ancestor with SPPC (PP = 0.92). Our ML analysis also found this relationship, although with poor support (ML = 25%). Accipitridae (hawks) were sister to the group comprising Falconidae and SPPC (PP = 0.95, ML = 26%) ( fig. 1 ). We never recovered a direct sister relationship between accipitrids and falconids, which was in agreement with previous studies ( Gibb et al. 2007 ; Slack et al. 2007 ). This finding ( fig. 1 ) contrasts with Pacheco et al. (2011) who found a monophyletic relationship of diurnal raptors, which could be due to the choice of partitioning scheme (see Powell et al. 2013 ). Because Turkey Vulture ( Cathartes aura ) generated a long branch, it was removed after preliminary analysis (see Gibb et al. 2007 ; Slack et al. 2007 ). This could be partly because Cathartidae is possibly not a genuine raptor and its resemblance to Old World vultures is an example of convergent evolution ( Tagliarini et al. 2009 ). Here again, additional sequences, including nuclear data, will be helpful.

A consensus network of our Bayesian analysis ( fig. 2 ) also suggested no close relationship between falconids and accipitrids.

We are able to conclude here that owls (Strigiformes) are monophyletic, Secretarybird ( S. serpentarius ) forms a group with Accipitridae and Pandionidae, higher land birds are a natural group, and raptors are not a natural (monophyletic) group. https://academic.oup.com/gbe/article/6/2/326/534933/Phylogenetic-Position-of-Avian-Nocturnal-and