Identifying riparian climate corridors to inform climate adaptation planning.

Riparian habitats have been frequently identified as priority areas for conservation under climate change because they span climatic gradients and have cool, moist microclimates relative to surrounding areas. They are therefore expected to act as dispersal corridors for climate-induced species range shifts and to provide microclimatic refugia from warming. Despite recognition of these values, rigorous methods to identify which riparian areas are most likely to facilitate range shifts and provide refugia are currently lacking.

Phylogeny and new taxonomy of the Booted Eagles (Accipitriformes: Aquilinae).

We present a phylogeny of all booted eagles (38 extant and one extinct species) based on analysis of published sequences from seven loci. We find molecular support for five major clades within the booted eagles: Nisaetus (10 species), Spizaetus (4 species), Clanga (3 species), Hieraaetus (6 species) and Aquila (11 species), requiring generic changes for 14 taxa. Additionally, we recommend that the Long-crested Eagle (Lophaetus occipitalis) and the Black Eagle (Ictinaetus malaiensis) remain in their monotypic genera, due to their distinctive morphology.

Connectivity planning to address climate change.

As the climate changes, human land use may impede species from tracking areas with suitable climates. Maintaining connectivity between areas of different temperatures could allow organisms to move along temperature gradients and allow species to continue to occupy the same temperature space as the climate warms. We used a coarse-filter approach to identify broad corridors for movement between areas where human influence is low while simultaneously routing the corridors along present-day spatial gradients of temperature.

Ongoing movement of the hermit warbler X Townsend's warbler hybrid zone.

Background: Movements of hybrid zones - areas of overlap and interbreeding between species - are difficult to document empirically. This is true because moving hybrid zones are expected to be rare, and because movement may proceed too slowly to be measured directly. Townsend's warblers (Dendroica townsendi) hybridize with hermit warblers (D.

A 2000 km genetic wake yields evidence for northern glacial refugia and hybrid zone movement in a pair of songbirds.

Hybrid zones are natural experiments that expose the forces maintaining species differences. But for cases where a trait of one of the hybridizing pair appears shifted into the range of the other, the underlying mechanism can be difficult to infer. For example, hybridization between hermit warbler (Dendroica occidentalis) and Townsend's warbler (Dendroica townsendi) is restricted to narrow hybrid zones in Washington and Oregon, yet hermit mtDNA can be found in phenotypically pure Townsend's populations up to 2000 km north along the Pacific coast.