Phylogenies of the sunbirds (Nectariniidae) and flowerpeckers (Dicaeidae) based on analyses of vocalizations

Sunbirds of the family Nectariniidae occur throughout the Old World tropics from Africa across southern Asia to Wallacea and northern Australasia, reaching the Solomons. Primarily tropical Asian, flowerpeckers of the family Dicaeidae are absent from Africa; only one species reaches Australia and another two northern Melanesia. Songs are simple in flowerpeckers but very complicated in some sunbirds, providing opportunities for detailed analyses and comparative studies. In order to clarify whether sunbirds originated in Asia, as suggested by DNA data, or Africa, as indicated by some morphological analyses, we derived phylogenies from analyses of their vocalizations using AVIS OFT software. Phylogenies derived from data for maximum frequencies, note interval, note duration, amplitude, band width,range of frequencies, entropy and other parameters will be presented for 148 species of sunbirds, together with phylogenies from equivalent data for 36 species of flowerpeckers. Results for the latter suggest that the genus Prionochilus is basal