Two papers were published recently on tanagers in the journal Evolution. Both papers originated form data sets collected by Burns lab MS students. In Allison Shultz’s paper, she presents her massive data set on plumage color of tanagers for the first time. She shows that sexual dichromatism evolves via a mosaic of sexual and natural selection in both males and females. Nick Mason continues to use his data set on song evolution to learn more about the importance of vocal evolution in birds. In his recent paper, he compares tanagers (Thraupidae) to another large Neotropical radiation, the ovenbirds (Furnariidae) and shows that evolution bursts in rates of speciation and song evolution are coincident, with rates of vocal evolution higher in taxa with learned songs. Congrats to both Allison and Nick!

Shultz, A. J.* and K. J. Burns. 2017. The role of sexual and natural selection in shaping patterns of sexual dichromatism in the largest family of songbirds (Aves: Thraupidae). Evolution 71: 1061-1074. For pdf, you can go to the journal’s web site or just send an email request to kburns@mail.sdsu.edu.

Mason, N. A.*, K. J. Burns, J. A. Tobias, S. Claramunt, N. Seddon, and E. P. Derryberry. 2017. Song evolution, speciation, and vocal learning in passerine birds. Evolution 71: 786-796. For pdf, you can go to the journal’s web site or just send an email request to kburns@mail.sdsu.edu.

Rates of speciation and vocal evolution in tanagers and ovenbirds. 
Figure from Mason et al. 2017.