The collared flycatcher (''Ficedula albicollis'') is a small

passerine A passerine () is any bird of the order Passeriformes (; from Latin 'sparrow' and '-shaped'), which includes more than half of all bird species. Sometimes known as perching birds, passerines are distinguished from other orders of birds by th ...

bird in the

Old World flycatcher The Old World flycatchers are a large family, the Muscicapidae, of small passerine birds restricted to the Old World (Europe, Africa and Asia), with the exception of several vagrants and two species, Bluethroat (''Luscinia svecica)'' and Northe ...

family, one of the four

species In biology, a species is the basic unit of classification and a taxonomic rank of an organism, as well as a unit of biodiversity. A species is often defined as the largest group of organisms in which any two individuals of the appropriate s ...

Western Palearctic black-and-white flycatchers The term Western Palearctic black-and-white flycatchers is used to refer to a group of similar-looking birds in the genus ''Ficedula'': * Atlas pied flycatcher ''F. speculigera'' which breeds in Northwest Africa * Collared flycatcher ''F. albicoll ...

. It breeds in southeast

Europe Europe is a large peninsula conventionally considered a continent in its own right because of its great physical size and the weight of its history and traditions. Europe is also considered a subcontinent of Eurasia and it is located entirel ...

(isolated populations are present in the islands of Gotland and

Öland Öland (, ; ; sometimes written ''Øland'' in other Scandinavian languages, and often ''Oland'' internationally; la, Oelandia) is the second-largest Swedish island and the smallest of the traditional provinces of Sweden. Öland has an area ...

in the

Baltic Sea The Baltic Sea is an arm of the Atlantic Ocean that is enclosed by Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Germany, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Russia, Sweden and the North and Central European Plain. The sea stretches from 53°N to 66°N latitude and ...

, Sweden) and Eastern France to the Balkan Peninsula and

Ukraine Ukraine ( uk, Україна, Ukraïna, ) is a country in Eastern Europe. It is the second-largest European country after Russia, which it borders to the east and northeast. Ukraine covers approximately . Prior to the ongoing Russian inv ...

and is migratory, wintering in sub Sahara

Africa Africa is the world's second-largest and second-most populous continent, after Asia in both cases. At about 30.3 million km2 (11.7 million square miles) including adjacent islands, it covers 6% of Earth's total surface area ...

. It is a rare vagrant in western Europe. This is a 12–13.5 cm long bird. The breeding male is mainly black above and white below, with a white collar, large white wing patch, black tail (although some males have white tail sides) and a large white forehead patch. It has a pale rump. The bill is black and has the broad but pointed shape typical of aerial insectivores. As well as taking insects in flight, this species hunts caterpillars amongst the oak foliage, and will take berries. Ficedula albicollis MWNH 1878

Non-breeding males, females and juveniles have the black replaced by a pale brown, and may be very difficult to distinguish from other ''Ficedula'' flycatchers, particularly the

European pied flycatcher The European pied flycatcher (''Ficedula hypoleuca'') is a small passerine bird in the Old World flycatcher family. One of the four species of Western Palearctic black-and-white flycatchers, it hybridizes to a limited extent with the collared ...

(''F. hypoleuca'') and the

semicollared flycatcher The semicollared flycatcher (''Ficedula semitorquata'') is a small passerine bird in the Old World flycatcher family, one of the four species of Western Palearctic black-and-white flycatchers. It breeds in montane forests of the southeastern cor ...

(''F. semitorquata''), with which this species hybridizes to a limited extent. ''F. albicollis'' ''vis-a-vis'' ''F. hypoleuca'' are speciating from each other by

reinforcement In behavioral psychology, reinforcement is a consequence applied that will strengthen an organism's future behavior whenever that behavior is preceded by a specific antecedent stimulus. This strengthening effect may be measured as a higher fr ...

, as evidenced by differences between colouration in sympatry versus

allopatry Allopatric speciation () – also referred to as geographic speciation, vicariant speciation, or its earlier name the dumbbell model – is a mode of speciation that occurs when biological populations become geographically isolated from ...

. This is evidence for speciation by reinforcement. They are birds of deciduous woodlands, parks and gardens, with a preference for old trees with cavities in which it nests. They build an open nest in a tree hole, or man-made nest-boxes. Normally 5-7 eggs are laid. The song is slow strained whistles, quite unlike the pied flycatcher. Pied flycatchers can mimic the song of the collared flycatcher in sympatric populations. The genus name is from

Latin Latin (, or , ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally a dialect spoken in the lower Tiber area (then known as Latium) around present-day Rome, but through the power of the ...

and refers to a small fig-eating bird (''ficus'', "fig") supposed to change into the

blackcap The Eurasian blackcap (''Sylvia atricapilla''), usually known simply as the blackcap, is a common and widespread typical warbler. It has mainly olive-grey upperparts and pale grey underparts, and differences between the five subspecies are sm ...

in winter. The specific ''albicollis'' is from Latin ''albus'', white, and ''collum'', "neck". The collared flycatcher is used as a model species in both

ecology Ecology () is the study of the relationships between living organisms, including humans, and their physical environment. Ecology considers organisms at the individual, population, community, ecosystem, and biosphere level. Ecology overl ...

and

genetics Genetics is the study of genes, genetic variation, and heredity in organisms.Hartl D, Jones E (2005) It is an important branch in biology because heredity is vital to organisms' evolution. Gregor Mendel, a Moravian Augustinian friar wor ...

and it was one of the first birds that had its full

genome In the fields of molecular biology and genetics, a genome is all the genetic information of an organism. It consists of nucleotide sequences of DNA (or RNA in RNA viruses). The nuclear genome includes protein-coding genes and non-coding g ...

sequenced. Repeated spectrometric data taken from male Collared Flycatchers has revealed that plumage reflectance should be measured during courtship, the primary period of sexual signalling, with spectral traits declining over the breeding season. In a natural population of ''F. albicollis''

inbreeding Inbreeding is the production of offspring from the mating or breeding of individuals or organisms that are closely related genetically. By analogy, the term is used in human reproduction, but more commonly refers to the genetic disorders and o ...

appeared to be rare, but when it did occur it had severe negative consequences for fitness characteristics such as hatching success rate.

References

External links

Collared flycatcher genome
on

Ensembl Ensembl genome database project is a scientific project at the European Bioinformatics Institute, which provides a centralized resource for geneticists, molecular biologists and other researchers studying the genomes of our own species and other v ...

{{Taxonbar, from=Q690826

collared flycatcher The collared flycatcher (''Ficedula albicollis'') is a small passerine bird in the Old World flycatcher family, one of the four species of Western Palearctic black-and-white flycatchers. It breeds in southeast Europe (isolated populations are p ...

Birds of Europe Birds of East Africa Birds of Central Africa Birds of Southern Africa