Sino-Himalayan mountains act as cradles of diversity and immigration centres in the diversification of parrotbills (Paradoxornithidae)

摘要

AimMontane regions like the Sino-Himalayas constitute global diversity hotspots. Various mechanisms such as insitu adaptive divergence, speciation following immigration or allopatric diversification in complex landscapes have been proposed to account for the exceptional diversity found in a particular clade in a montane setting. We investigated macroevolutionary patterns to test these different hypotheses in the continental radiation of a Sino-Himalayan bird group, the parrotbills (Paradoxornithidae).