Megapodiidae
Megapodes
Joseph W. BrownThis tree diagram shows the relationships between several groups of organisms.
The root of the current tree connects the organisms featured in this tree to their containing group and the rest of the Tree of Life. The basal branching point in the tree represents the ancestor of the other groups in the tree. This ancestor diversified over time into several descendent subgroups, which are represented as internal nodes and terminal taxa to the right.
You can click on the root to travel down the Tree of Life all the way to the root of all Life, and you can click on the names of descendent subgroups to travel up the Tree of Life all the way to individual species.
For more information on ToL tree formatting, please see Interpreting the Tree or Classification. To learn more about phylogenetic trees, please visit our Phylogenetic Biology pages.
close boxSummary tree based on nuclear and mitochondrial DNA sequence data (Birks and Edwards, 2002). This tree is consistent with a morphological character-based reconstruction (Jones et al., 1995) except for the placement of the root (within the mound builders for the latter). A. bruijnii, four species of Megapodius (M. bernsteinii, M. laperouse, M. nicobariensis, and M. geelvinkianus) and two species of Talegalla (T. cuvieri and T. jobiensis) were not included in these analyses.
References
Birks, S. M., and S. V. Edwards. 2002. A phylogeny of the megapodes (Aves: Megapodiidae) based on nuclear and mitochondrial DNA sequences. Molecular Phylogenetics and Evolution 23: 408-421.
Clark, G. A. 1964. Life histories and the evolution of megapodes. Living Bird 3: 149-167.
Frith, H. J. 1956. Breeding habits of the family Megapodiidae. Ibis 98: 620-640.
Gill, F. and M. Wright. 2006. Birds of the World: Recommended English Names. Princeton NJ: Princeton University Press.
Jones, D., and S. Birks. 1992. Megapodes: recent ideas on origins, adaptations and reproduction. Trends in Ecology and Evolution 7: 88-91.
Jones, D. N., R. W. R. J. Dekker, and C. S. Roselaar. 1995. The Megapodes. Oxford University Press, Oxford.
About This Page
Joseph W. Brown
University of Michigan Museum of Zoology, Ann Arbor, Michigan, USA
Correspondence regarding this page should be directed to Joseph W. Brown at
Page copyright © 2005 Joseph W. Brown
Page: Tree of Life Megapodiidae. Megapodes. Authored by Joseph W. Brown. The TEXT of this page is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial License - Version 3.0. Note that images and other media featured on this page are each governed by their own license, and they may or may not be available for reuse. Click on an image or a media link to access the media data window, which provides the relevant licensing information. For the general terms and conditions of ToL material reuse and redistribution, please see the Tree of Life Copyright Policies.
- First online 20 December 2005
Citing this page:
Brown, Joseph W. 2005. Megapodiidae. Megapodes. Version 20 December 2005 (temporary). http://tolweb.org/Megapodiidae/26297/2005.12.20 in The Tree of Life Web Project, http://tolweb.org/