Rethinking phylogeographic structure and historical refugia in the rufous-capped babbler Cyanoderma ruficeps in light of range-wide genetic sampling and paleodistributional reconstructions

Combining ecological niche modeling with phylogeography has become a popular approach to understand how historical climate changes have created and maintained population structure. However, methodological choices in geographic extents and environmental layer sets employed in modeling may affect results and interpretations profoundly. Here, we infer range-wide phylogeographic structure and model ecological niches of Cyanoderma ruficeps, and compare results to previous studies that examined this species across mainland China and Taiwan only. Use of dense taxon sampling of closely related species as outgroups question C. ruficeps monophyly. Furthermore, previously unsampled C. ruficeps populations from central Vietnam were closely related to disjunct western populations (Nepal, Tibet, Myanmar, Yunnan), rather than to geographically proximate populations in northern Vietnam and eastern China. Phylogeographic structure is more complex than previously appreciated; niche model projections to Last Glacial Maximum climate scenarios identified larger areas of suitable conditions than previous studies, but potential distributional limits differed markedly between climate models employed and were dependent upon interpretation of non-analogous historical climate scenarios. Previously identified population expansion across central China may result from colonization from refugial distributions during the Last Interglacial, rather than the Last Glacial Maximum, as previously understood [Current Zoology 61 (5): 901–909, 2015].