DISSERTATION RESEARCH: Investigating patterns, processes, and the role of mimicry in the phenotypic evolution of Tyrannini flycatchers

Tyrannini捕蝇鸟群包含34种鸟类，其中一些是美洲最常见和最显眼的鸟类。几个不相关的Tyrannini血统在外表上惊人地相似，但在体型上却有很大的不同。这使得它们成为研究导致远亲物种彼此相似的生物过程的重要系统。这项研究将促进华盛顿大学的研究生培训，美国和拉丁美洲科学家之间的国际合作，以及西雅图伯克自然历史和文化博物馆的公共科学教育和推广。表型趋同可以用共同祖先、偶然、平行选择或模仿来解释。解开这些选择需要同时分析系统发育历史、特征进化和行为生态学。种间社会优势模仿（ISDM）是一种以干扰竞争为中介的两方模仿系统，其中模型（被模仿物种）也是信号接收者。本研究探讨了ISDM在Tyrannini捕蝇鸟表型进化中的模式、过程和作用。研究人员将利用序列捕获构建Tyrannini的物种水平系统发育，利用系统发育比较方法研究视觉和声学表型之间的模式和相关性，并利用行为现场实验评估ISDM和其他模仿假设的生态证据。

The Tyrannini group of flycatchers contains 34 bird species, some of which are among the most common and conspicuous birds of the Americas. Several unrelated Tyrannini lineages are strikingly similar in appearance while varying greatly in body size. This makes them an important system for studying the biological processes that cause distantly related species to resemble each other. This research will foster graduate student training at the University of Washington, international collaborations between scientists in the United States and Latin America, and public science education and outreach at the Burke Museum of Natural History and Culture in Seattle.Phenotypic convergence can be explained by common ancestry, chance, parallel selection, or mimicry. Disentangling these alternatives requires concurrent analyses of phylogenetic history, character evolution, and behavioral ecology. Interspecific social dominance mimicry (ISDM) is a two-party mimicry system mediated by interference competition in which the model (the species being mimicked) is also the signal receiver. This research explores the patterns, processes, and the role of ISDM in the phenotypic evolution of Tyrannini flycatchers. The researchers will construct a species-level phylogeny of Tyrannini using sequence capture, investigate patterns and correlations between visual and acoustic phenotypes using phylogenetic comparative methods, and evaluate ecological evidence for ISDM and alternative mimicry hypotheses using behavioral field experiments.