View article

Kingfishers are the most species‐rich family in the avian order, Coraciiformes. Their modern distribution is largely pantropical; however, global species diversity is unevenly distributed. For example, 19 of the 114 kingfisher species occur in New Guinea, whereas only six species occur in the entire New World. This disparity in diversity suggests regions with high species richness could represent the ancestral range of the family. Furthermore, some clades of kingfishers (Ceyx, Todiramphus) are thought to be the product of rapid insular radiations. Here, we investigated the biogeographical history and speciation dynamics of the Alcedinidae using a fully sampled molecular phylogeny.

Global.

Kingfishers (Aves: Coraciiformes: Alcedinidae).

We inferred a time‐calibrated, species‐level phylogeny of kingfishers from DNA sequences. Our data set comprised up to five Sanger‐sequenced …