A molecular phylogeny of the harriers (Circus, Accipitridae) indicate the role of long distance dispersal and migration in diversification

In one case only, 'Accipiter' species have been reclassified in a new genus after molecular data showed that they were not members of the larger Accipiter (sensu lato) clade: the Tiny Hawk and Semicollared Hawk are now placed in the genus Microspizias by some authors.

“In one case only, have”

Accipiter, as traditionally defined (Peters, 1931), does not form a monophyletic group.

“a wave of evidence that Accipiter, as traditionally defined (Peters, 1931), does not form a monophyletic group (e.g., Griffiths, 2007;Hugall & Stuart-Fox, 2012;Oatley et al., 2015;Mindell et al., 2018).”

In cases where the relationships of Accipiter were explicitly addressed, authors have been unwilling to take nomenclatural action because of relatively sparse species-level sampling or uncertainty caused by the exclusion of (or scarcity of available data from) certain enigmatic taxa.

“In cases where the relationships of Accipiter were explicitly addressed, authors have been unwilling to take nomenclatural action because of relatively sparse species-level sampling (e.g., Oatley et al., 2015) or uncertainty caused by the exclusion of (or scarcity of available data from) certain enigmatic taxa (Mindell et al., 2018).”

Our topology for Circus generally agreed with previous studies, except that we recovered C. assimilis (and therefore C. teauteenis) as sister to the rest of Circus, rather than sister to one of two main clades within Circus.

“In general, our topology agreed with previous studies (Oatley et al., 2015;Mindell et al., 2018;Knapp et al., 2019), with the exception of the placement of C. assimilis (and therefore C. teauteenis), which we recovered as sister to the rest of Circus, rather than sister to one of two main clades within Circus.”

The Microspizias + Harpagus clade was sister to Buteoninae.

“Like Oatley et al. (2015), we found the Microspizias + Harpagus clade to be sister to Buteoninae, whereas Mindell et al. (2018) found it to be sister to a clade containing Buteoninae and the rest of Accipitrinae (sensu lato).”

The genus Accipiter is non-monophyletic.

“The non-monophyly of the diverse genus Accipiter is a particularly thorny problem, which has been unresolved for many years (e.g., Griffiths, 2007;Hugall & Stuart-Fox, 2012;Oatley et al., 2015;Mindell et al., 2018).”