Abstract
About 130 taxa of birds reach distributional limits in the central Great Plains, and 28 of these are replaced there by closely related taxa that are apparently their ecological counterparts. In many cases, it is reasonable to assume that the presence of a similar, competing form is a factor limiting distribution. Hybridization between the counterparts is known to occur at least occasionally in 22 (11 pairs of taxa) of these 28 (14 pairs) taxa, and many of the commonly hybridizing taxa are common in the Plains. In terms of numbers of individuals they comprise a sizable proportion of the bird life of that region. Although species specialized to live in grasslands are numerous in the Plains, only two, the Eastern and Western meadowlarks (Sturneila magna and S. negiecta), are known to hybridize in the Plains. The other hybridizing taxa are adapted to deciduous thicket or woodland edge habitats. For the most part, an eastern taxon is replaced by and hybridizes with a western taxon, but in some examples replacement is northeast-southwest, and in one case north-south. For east-west distributional replacements, the counterpart taxa seemingly differentiated in allopatry during the Pleistocene and are presently in secondary contact (Short, 1965; Remington, 1968; Mengel, 1970).
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© 1983 Plenum Press, New York
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Rising, J.D. (1983). The Great Plains Hybrid Zones. In: Johnston, R.F. (eds) Current Ornithology. Current Ornithology, vol 1. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4615-6781-3_5
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4615-6781-3_5
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