Urban Olsson

University of Gothenburg | GU · Department of Biological & Environmental Sciences

The Afghan pika Ochotona rufescens (Gray, 1842) is widely distributed across the mountains of Afghanistan, Iran, Pak- istan, and southwestern Turkmenistan, most often at eleva- tions between 2,0 0 0 and 3,0 0 0 m. Here we present, for the first time, the complete mitochondrial genomes of two spec- imens of the nominotypical subspecies Ochotona rufe...

Different genomic regions may reflect conflicting phylogenetic topologies primarily due to incomplete lineage sorting and/or gene flow. Genomic data are necessary to reconstruct the true species tree and explore potential causes of phylogenetic conflict. Here, we investigate the phylogenetic relationships of four Emberiza species (Aves: Emberizidae...

Traditional classification of many animals, including birds, has been highly dependent on external morphological characters like plumage coloration. However, both bioacoustics and genetic or genomic data have revolutionized our understanding of the relationships of certain lineages and led to sweeping taxonomic re-organizations. In this study, we p...

The species complex comprising the rufous-naped lark Corypha africana, Sharpe’s lark Corypha sharpii, the red-winged lark Corypha hypermetra, the Somali long-billed lark Corypha somalica and Ash’s lark Corypha ashi encompasses 31 recognised taxa across sub-Saharan Africa, many of which are extremely poorly known and some not observed for decades. O...

A checklist of the 88 genera and 332 species of lice (Insecta: Phthiraptera) recorded from Sweden is provided, including records of 128 species and 12 genera hitherto not reported from Sweden. Philopterus linariae (Piaget, 1885) is reported for the first time from Spinus spinus (Linnaeus, 1758). Actornithophilus sedes Eichler, 1944, is reported for...

Determining the limits of species is still a major area of contention, particularly when diagnostic differentiating characters are subtle and there is a contradiction between morphological and genetic data. The lesser whitethroat (LWT) complex Curruca curruca represents an interesting study system to address this issue. Here, we use phylogeny‐, adm...

Janson Christer (Orcid ID: 0000-0001-5093-6980) Nwaru Bright I (Orcid ID: 0000-0002-2876-6089) 0Page 2 of 3 Prescribing patterns of budesonide/formote rol maintenance and reliever therapy in patients with asthma in Sweden Word count: 1010 To the Editor, Fixed-dose combination of an inhaled corticosteroid (ICS), budesonide (BUD), and a rapid-onset,...

Tropical islands are renowned as natural laboratories for evolutionary study. Lineage radiations across tropical archipelagos are ideal systems for investigating how colonization, speciation, and extinction processes shape biodiversity patterns. The expansion of the island thrush across the Indo-Pacific represents one of the largest yet most perple...

The seasonal migration of birds is a fascinating natural wonder. Avian migratory behavior changes are common and are likely a polygenic process, as avian migration is governed by multiple correlated components with a variable genetic basis. However, the genetic and phenotypic changes involving migration changes are poorly studied. Using one annotat...

The Old World flycatchers, robins and chats (Aves, Muscicapidae) are a diverse songbird family with over three hundred species. Despite continuous efforts over the past two decades, there is still no comprehensive and well-resolved species-level phylogeny for Muscicapidae. Here we present a supermatrix phylogeny that includes all 50 currently recog...

Morphology has been a leading taxonomic guiding light to systematists for the last couple of hundred years. However, the genetic and – more recently – genomic revolution have produced numerous demonstrations of erroneous classifications that were based on labile morphological traits. We used thousands of genome‐wide markers to shed light on evoluti...

Taxonomy of Afghan pikas Ochotona rufescens distributed in Western and Central Asia has long been debated, and the presence of cryptic diversity within the species has been suggested. In this study, we used one mitochondrial (cyt b) and six nuclear (nuDNA) markers to investigate genetic diversity within Afghan pikas O. rufescens populations based o...

We describe the discovery of a previously unknown population of Melodious Lark Mirafra cheniana from northern Tanzania and southern Kenya, some 2000 km north of what was previously thought to be its northern limit in central Zimbabwe. The identification of this population as M. cheniana is based primarily on analyses of mitochondrial DNA and song....

Several cryptic avian species have been validated by recent integrative taxonomic efforts in the Sino-Himalayan mountains, indicating that avian diversity in this global biodiversity hotspot may be underestimated. In the present study, we investigated species limits in the genus Tarsiger, the bush robins, a group of montane forest specialists with...

The pygmy rabbit Brachylagus idahoensis (Merriam, 1891) is the smallest extant leporid, which naturally occurs in the Great Basin and adjacent areas in western parts of the United States of America. Its distribution is strongly associated with the sagebrush (Artemisia ssp.) vegetation. Here we present, for the first time, the complete mitochondrial...

Tropical islands are renowned as natural laboratories for evolutionary study. Lineage radiations across tropical archipelagos are ideal systems for investigating how colonization, speciation, and extinction processes shape biodiversity patterns. The expansion of the island thrush across the Indo-Pacific represents one of the largest yet most perple...

Background: Bats are potential reservoir hosts for vector-borne diseases that can transmit many bacterial and viral agents to humans. Fruit bats are considered reservoirs of many viruses and they are of major importance in the medical sciences for controlling and preventing vector-borne diseases. This study aimed to compare the morphological and ge...

The Asian and Australo‐Papuan faunas meet and intermix across the islands of Wallacea. Untangling the origins and relationships of the species inhabiting these archipelagos is an ongoing project that has lasted for well over a century. In recent years, molecular phylogenetic studies have made considerable progress in clarifying the affinities of en...

Background Field studies from 2011 onwards have demonstrated the presence of a breeding population of Yellow Wagtails ( Motacilla flava ) in the Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, China that is phenotypically distinct from known subspecies occurring in Asia. Here we describe the plumages and vocalisations of this population and discuss its taxonomic...

Brightly colored manakin (Aves: Pipridae) males are known for performing acrobatic displays punctuated by non-vocal sounds (sonations) in order to attract dull colored females. The complexity of the display sequence and assortment of display elements involved (e.g., sonations, acrobatic maneuvers, and cooperative performances) varies considerably a...

Prinias (Cisticolidae: Prinia) are resident warblers of open areas across Africa and Asia and include many polytypic species whose species limits have not been seriously reevaluated recently. Based on an integrative taxonomic analysis of morphology, song, and mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA), we suggest that 2 species should be recognized in the Graceful...

Eastern broad-toothed field mouse, Apodemus mystacinus, is a rocky habitat dwelling rodent distributed in Asia Minor, the Levant, the Caucasus, and the Zagros Mountains. In this study, we investigated the phylogenetic relationship between different populations of A. mystacinus throughout its range, based on the mitochondrial cytb marker. Phylogenet...

Hares from Iran can be divided into three morphological groups, with Lepus europaeus inhabiting the western parts of Iran. Hares from lowland areas along the southeastern corner of the Caspian Sea are morphologically similar to both L. tolai and L. tibetanus, but diagnosis is complicated by a lack of taxonomic agreement. Mitochondrial DNA suggests...

Larks constitute an avian family of exceptional cryptic diversity and striking examples of convergent evolution. Therefore, traditional morphology-based taxonomy has recurrently failed to reflect evolutionary relationships. While taxonomy ideally should integrate morphology, vocalizations, behaviour, ecology, and genetics, this can be challenging f...

Species delimitation has advanced from a purely phenotypic exercise to a branch of science that integrates multiple sources of data to identify independently evolving lineages that can be treated as species. We here test species limits in the avian Lesser Short-toed Lark Alaudala rufesens–Sand Lark A. raytal complex, which has an intricate taxonomi...

Dryomys nitedula has been considered a polytypic species which is distributed in the Palearctic region. Previous studies have shown the taxonomic status and phylogenetic relationships between different subspecies of D. nitedula needs to be further investigated. Here, we applied mitochondrial and nuclear DNA markers to evaluate phylogenetic relation...

We re‐evaluated the taxonomy of the Striated Prinia Prinia crinigera‐Brown Prinia P. polychroa complex using molecular, morphological and vocal analyses. The extensive seasonal, sexual, age‐related, geographic, and taxon‐specific variation in this complex has never before been adequately studied. As no previous genetic or vocal analyses focused on...

The Lesser Whitethroat Sylvia curruca complex continues to provide challenges for ornithologists and taxonomists. One of the remaining outstanding questions concerns the taxonomic identity of the diferent breeding populations in Iran and in particular zagrossiensis, which inhabits the Zagros mountains. We here used the three mitochondrial genes c...

The taxonomy of the Lesser/Asian Short‐toed Lark Alaudala rufescens–cheleensis complex has been debated for decades, mainly because of minor morphological differentiation among the taxa within the complex, and different interpretations of the geographical pattern of morphological characters among different authors. In addition, there have been few...

The Lesser Whitethroat Sylvia curruca complex continues to provide challenges for ornithologists and taxonomists. One of the remaining outstanding questions concerns the taxonomic identity of the different breeding populations in Iran and in particular zagrossiensis, which inhabits the Zagros mountains. We here used the three mitochondrial genes cy...

We present a revised taxonomy of Estrildidae based on the first time-calibrated phylogeny of the family Estrildidae estimated from a data set including the majority of the species, and all genera except the monospecific Paludipasser, using two mitochondrial and five nuclear markers. We find that most differences in current taxonomy reflect alternat...

To elucidate the relationships and spatial range evolution across the world of the bird genus Turdus (Aves), we produced a large genomic dataset comprising ca 2 million nucleotides for ca 100 samples representing 53 species, including over 2000 loci. We estimated time-calibrated maximum-likelihood and multispecies coalescent phylogenies and carried...

Phylogeographic analyses of the genus Eremophila (Horned Lark E. alpestris and Temminck’s Lark E. bilopha) were carried out based on the mitochondrial cytochrome b and ND2 genes. Four primary lineages with para-/allopatric distributions were identified: (1) a Qinghai–Tibetan–Himalayan lineage; (2) a North African and Middle Eastern lineage; (3) a n...

The largest genus in Sylviidae family is Sylvia, which is the archetype for warblers. It contains up to 28 species that are distributed in the Old World. Here, we study Iranian Sylvia using cytochrome c oxidase subunit 1 (cox1) and cytochrome b (cytb) mitochondrial markers to identify them and place in a phylogenetic context using all available Gen...

Diversification of avifaunas associated with savannah and steppes appear to correlate with open habitats becoming available as a result of the spreading of C4 grasses, starting in the Miocene. Few comparative analyses exist for families for which all species are predominantly adapted to these habitats. One such group is Laniidae (Passeriformes), wh...

Massively parallel DNA sequencing opens up opportunities for bridging multiple temporal and spatial dimensions in biodiversity research, thanks to its efficiency to recover millions of nucleotide polymorphisms. Here, we identify the current status, discuss the main challenges, and look into future perspectives on biodiversity genomics focusing on i...

Raw data retrieved from our search in Web of Science. Our Literature Review was based on an unbiased search in Web of Science. More details can be found in the main text.

Input data for generating Figure 3. Data was retrieved from Web of Science. The analyses were performed only on Original research. Other type of articles retrieved by our search in Web of Science can be found in the raw data file in Supporting Material.

Brazil, home to one of the planet’s last great forests, is currently in trade negotiations with its second largest trading partner, the European Union (EU). We urge the EU to seize this critical opportunity to ensure that Brazil protects human rights and the environment. Brazil’s forests, wetlands, and savannas are crucial to a great diversity of I...

Massively parallel DNA sequencing opens up opportunities for bridging multiple temporal and spatial dimensions in biodiversity research, thanks to its efficiency to recover millions of nucleotide polymorphisms. Here we identify the current status, discuss the main challenges, and look into future perspectives on biodiversity genomics focusing on in...

Massively parallel DNA sequencing opens up opportunities for bridging multiple temporal and spatial dimensions in biodiversity research, thanks to its efficiency to recover millions of nucleotide polymorphisms. Here we identify the current status, discuss the main challenges, and look into future perspectives on biodiversity genomics focusing on in...

Background: The White-browed Shortwing (Brachypteryx montana) is widespread from the central Himalayas to the southeast Chinese mainland and the island of Taiwan, the Philippines and Indonesia. Multiple subspecies are recog- nised, and several of these have recently been suggested to be treated as separate species based on differences in morphology...

Species not only responded idiosyncratically to past climate changes, there were also regionally contrasting effects on spatio-temporal diversification patterns. Studies of closely related species appear to be a particularly promising comparative approach to disentangle such regionally differential impacts. In this study, we undertook a comprehensi...

Jacamar species occur throughout Amazonia, with most species occupying forested habitats. One species-complex, Galbula leucogastra / chalcothorax, is associated to white sand ecosystems (WSE). Previous studies of WSE bird species recovered shallow genetic structure in mtDNA coupled with signs of gene flow among WSE patches. Here, we characterize di...

DNA phylogenies have gradually shed light on the phylogenetic relationships of the large babbler group. We focus in this study on the family Leiothrichidae (laughingthrushes and “song babblers”), which represents the largest clade of babblers in terms of species diversity. Our phylogeny includes all genera and 82% of the recognized species, using m...

Advances in high-throughput sequencing techniques now allow relatively easy and affordable sequencing of large portions of the genome, even for non-model organisms. Many phylogenetic studies reduce costs by focusing their sequencing efforts on a selected set of targeted loci, commonly enriched using sequence capture. The advantage of this approach...

Advances in high-throughput sequencing techniques now allow relatively easy and affordable sequencing of large portions of the genome, even for non-model organisms. Many phylogenetic studies reduce costs by focusing their sequencing efforts on a selected set of targeted loci, commonly enriched using sequence capture. The advantage of this approach...

The widespread Old World avian family Locustellidae ('grassbirds and allies') comprises 62 extant species in 11 genera. In the present study, we used one mitochondrial and, for most species, four nuclear loci to infer the phylogeny of this family. We analysed 59 species, including the five previously unsampled genera plus two genera that had not be...

The leaf warbler radiation (Aves: Phylloscopidae) has undergone a c. 50% increase in the number of recognised species over the last three decades, mainly as a result of analyses of vocalisations and DNA. Using a multilocus dataset for all of the species in this family, and multispecies coalescent-based as well as concatenation methods, we provide t...

The study of biodiversity within the spatiotemporal continuum of evolution, e.g., studying local communities, population dynamics, or phylogenetic diversity, has been important to properly identify and describe the current biodiversity crisis. However, it has become clear that a multi-scale approach – from the leaves of phylogenetic trees to its de...

The study of biodiversity within the spatiotemporal continuum of evolution, e.g., studying local communities, population dynamics, or phylogenetic diversity, has been important to properly identify and describe the current biodiversity crisis. However, it has become clear that a multi-scale approach-from the leaves of phylogenetic trees to its deep...

Phylogeography and taxonomy of Afghan pikas Ochotona rufescens in Western Asia were investigated based on a combination of mitochondrial cyt b gene sequences and morphometric analyses. We measured 200 specimens from the whole range of O. rufescens in Western Asia, including the holotypes of O. r. regina, O. r. shukurovi, O. r. vulturna, O. r. vizie...

Jerdon’s Babbler Chrysomma altirostre is a threatened Oriental grassland specialist passerine heavily affected by habitat loss. Its now-relictual range spans from Pakistan to Myanmar covering three poorly-studied subspecies. Our study of subspecific differentiation revealed limited range-wide mitochondrial divergences, suggesting that mountain rang...

Our objective was to elucidate the biogeography and speciation patterns in an entire avian family, which shows a complex pattern of overlapping and nonoverlapping geographical distributions, and much variation in plumage, but less in size and structure. We estimated the phylogeny and divergence times for all of the world's species of Prunella based...

The louse genus Carduiceps Clay & Meinertzhagen, 1939 is widely distributed on sandpipers and stints (Calidrinae). The current taxonomy includes three species on the Calidrinae (Carduiceps meinertzhageni, Carduiceps scalaris, Carduiceps zonarius) and four species on noncalidrine hosts. We estimated a phylogeny of four of the seven species of Cardui...

Background: The Plain-backed Thrush Zoothera mollissima breeds in the Himalayas and mountains of central China. It was long considered conspecific with the Long-tailed Thrush Zoothera dixoni, until these were shown to be broadly sympatric. Methods: We revise the Z. mollissima-Z. dixoni complex by integrating morphological, acoustic, genetic (two mi...

The relationships among Old World chats and flycatchers (Muscicapidae) have recently been clarified in two independent molecular phylogenetic studies (Sangster et al. 2010, Zuccon & Ericson 2010). Both studies recovered a well-supported clade of predominantly blue flycatchers of the genera Niltava, Cyornis, Eumyias and Cyanoptila, some species trad...

The phylogenetic relationships of the avian family Muscicapidae (Old World chats and flycatchers) have historically been enigmatic and remain an active area of study. Widespread instances of non-monophyly resulting from misleading morphological and behavioral similarities have merited numerous taxonomic revisions to the group. Here we report one su...

Our knowledge of the systematics and taxonomy of Asian birds has improved much in the last two decades, and the number of recognised species has increased significantly as a result of in-depth studies using an integrative taxonomic approach. The Sino-Himalayan mountains harbor a high level of passerine diversity. Several allopatric or parapatric ta...