''Setophaga'' is a

genus Genus (; : genera ) is a taxonomic rank above species and below family (taxonomy), family as used in the biological classification of extant taxon, living and fossil organisms as well as Virus classification#ICTV classification, viruses. In bino ...

birds Birds are a group of warm-blooded vertebrates constituting the class (biology), class Aves (), characterised by feathers, toothless beaked jaws, the Oviparity, laying of Eggshell, hard-shelled eggs, a high Metabolism, metabolic rate, a fou ...

of the

New World warbler The New World warblers or wood-warblers are a group of small, often colorful, passerine birds that make up the family Parulidae and are restricted to the New World. The family contains 120 species. They are not closely related to Old World warb ...

family Parulidae. It contains at least 34

species A species () is often defined as the largest group of organisms in which any two individuals of the appropriate sexes or mating types can produce fertile offspring, typically by sexual reproduction. It is the basic unit of Taxonomy (biology), ...

. The ''Setophaga'' warblers are an example of

adaptive radiation In evolutionary biology, adaptive radiation is a process in which organisms diversify rapidly from an ancestral species into a multitude of new forms, particularly when a change in the environment makes new resources available, alters biotic int ...

with the various

using different feeding techniques and often feeding in different parts of the same tree. Most ''Setophaga'' species are long-range migrants, wintering in or near the

New World The term "New World" is used to describe the majority of lands of Earth's Western Hemisphere, particularly the Americas, and sometimes Oceania."America." ''The Oxford Companion to the English Language'' (). McArthur, Tom, ed., 1992. New York: ...

tropics and seasonally migrating to breed in

North America North America is a continent in the Northern Hemisphere, Northern and Western Hemisphere, Western hemispheres. North America is bordered to the north by the Arctic Ocean, to the east by the Atlantic Ocean, to the southeast by South Ameri ...

. In contrast, two ''Setophaga'' species, the palm warbler and yellow-rumped warbler, have winter ranges that extend along the Atlantic coast of North America as far north as Nova Scotia. The males in breeding plumage are often highly colorful.

Etymology

The genus name ''Setophaga'' means ''moth eater'' in

Ancient Greek Ancient Greek (, ; ) includes the forms of the Greek language used in ancient Greece and the classical antiquity, ancient world from around 1500 BC to 300 BC. It is often roughly divided into the following periods: Mycenaean Greek (), Greek ...

; from : ''sēs'' (genitive σητός : ''sētós''), "moth", and : ''phágos'', "eating".

Taxonomy

The genus ''Setophaga'' was introduced by the English naturalist

William Swainson William Swainson Fellow of the Linnean Society, FLS, Fellow of the Royal Society, FRS (8 October 1789 – 6 December 1855), was an English ornithologist, Malacology, malacologist, Conchology, conchologist, entomologist and artist. Life Swains ...

in 1827. The

type species In International_Code_of_Zoological_Nomenclature, zoological nomenclature, a type species (''species typica'') is the species name with which the name of a genus or subgenus is considered to be permanently taxonomically associated, i.e., the spe ...

was subsequently designated by Swainson in the same year as the

American redstart The American redstart (''Setophaga ruticilla'') is a New World warbler. It is unrelated to the Old World Common redstart, (common) redstart. Taxonomy The American redstart was described by Carl Linnaeus in 1758 in the 10th edition of Systema Nat ...

''Setophaga ruticilla''. Traditionally, most members (29 species) of ''Setophaga'' were recognized as belonging to the genus ''Dendroica''. The only member of ''Setophaga'' was the

. More recent genetic research suggested that ''Dendroica'' and ''Setophaga'' be merged. This change was accepted by both the North American and South American Classification Committees of the

American Ornithological Society The American Ornithological Society (AOS) is an ornithological organization based in the United States. The society was formed in October 2016 by the merger of the American Ornithologists' Union (AOU) and the Cooper Ornithological Society. Its ...

and the

IOC World Bird List ''Birds of the World: Recommended English Names'' is a paperback book written by Frank Gill and Minturn Wright on behalf of the International Ornithologists' Union. The book is an attempt to produce a standardized set of English names for all bi ...

. As the name ''Setophaga'' (published in 1827) takes priority over ''Dendroica'' (published in 1842), those who accept the merger transferred all ''Dendroica'' species to ''Setophaga''.

History

A burst of

speciation Speciation is the evolutionary process by which populations evolve to become distinct species. The biologist Orator F. Cook coined the term in 1906 for cladogenesis, the splitting of lineages, as opposed to anagenesis, phyletic evolution within ...

in ''Setophaga'' occurred between 4.5 and 7 million years ago. This time frame roughly corresponds to the transition from the

Miocene The Miocene ( ) is the first epoch (geology), geological epoch of the Neogene Period and extends from about (Ma). The Miocene was named by Scottish geologist Charles Lyell; the name comes from the Greek words (', "less") and (', "new") and mea ...

to the

Pliocene The Pliocene ( ; also Pleiocene) is the epoch (geology), epoch in the geologic time scale that extends from 5.33 to 2.58allopatric speciation 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 ...

in the genus. It is widely agreed that this speciation constitutes an

, though recent evidence is mixed, noting that evidence of both adaptive and non-adaptive radiations exists. Up to several ''Setophaga'' species coexist in regions such as northeastern North America. Since these species are strikingly similar in both diet and

morphology Morphology, from the Greek and meaning "study of shape", may refer to: Disciplines *Morphology (archaeology), study of the shapes or forms of artifacts *Morphology (astronomy), study of the shape of astronomical objects such as nebulae, galaxies, ...

, this was once thought to be a violation of the laws of

evolution Evolution is the change in the heritable Phenotypic trait, characteristics of biological populations over successive generations. It occurs when evolutionary processes such as natural selection and genetic drift act on genetic variation, re ...

. Further study concluded that species coexist through subtle feeding differences due to

niche partitioning In ecology, a niche is the match of a species to a specific environmental condition. Three variants of ecological niche are described by It describes how an organism or population responds to the distribution of resources and competitors (for e ...

and diffuse exploitative

interspecific competition Interspecific competition, in ecology, is a form of competition in which individuals of ''different'' species compete for the same resources in an ecosystem (e.g. food or living space). This can be contrasted with mutualism, a type of symbiosis. ...

: rather than compete directly for the same food resources, species utilize slightly different feeding strategies to capture a slightly different set of prey species.

List of species

The genus contains 37 species. They are:

References

{{Authority control Bird genera Birds of North America Meso-American wintering birds Taxa named by William Swainson