Suboscine Flycatchers are innate singers (not vocal learners) and thus less adaptable to habitat noise!

 

"The Old World flycatcher family comprises birds belonging to more than 300 species that are distributed across Europe, Asia and Africa. The family includes not only flycatchers, but also nightingales, chats, wheatears, redstarts, whistling-thrushes, forktails and other exotic groups. Twelve species breed in Sweden, of which the European robin, the pied flycatcher and the thrush nightingale are the most well-known. All except three of these species winter in sub-Saharan Africa or southern Asia. Researchers from Uppsala University, the University of Gothenburg and the University of Florida have used DNA to reconstruct the family tree of 92 per cent of the species in the Old World flycatcher family."

I have flycatchers that migrate to live on "my" land - I don't cut down many trees since who am I to mess with their millions of years of migration?

"Hence, I turned my interests to guild membership for testing competition – primarily between active foragers (i.e. warblers and

vireos) and sit-and-wait foragers (the flycatchers). Again, I found little evidence that the “ghost of competition past” has had a guild-wide effect on the morphologies of these species (Corbin unpublished). Nonetheless, my interests in the sit-and-wait foraging mode and the diversity of the world’s flycatching birds were initiated."

I had NO idea that Flycatchers were "sit and wait" foragers! Fascinating.

Definitely MY kind of foraging!

" Also, there were fundamental differences in the orientations of morphological disparity of Old versus New world flycatchers. However, the cluster analysis revealed that there is some level of matching across genera away from what one would predict according to phylogenetic or geographic nearest neighbors. Clusters predict the habitat preference across many of the genera under consideration. At the level of species, there is little evidence of convergence and modest evidence for phylogenetic conservatism. However, at the level of genera, convergence is apparent and seems to be associated with preference for open or closed habitats."

Clay E. Corbin Ph.D. thesis

The New World flycatchers have been identified as a “dominant family” of suboscine passerines on the South American continent (Keast 1972 and references therein). The ecomorphological space occupied by this group is at least equal the volume occupied by several different lineages in both Africa and Australia (Keast 1972). The factors responsible for the adaptive radiation of suboscine passerine birds that occurred during the Cenozoic isolation of South America are under considerable debate (see Haffner 1997; Roy et al. 1997; Tuomisto and Ruokolainen 199 ...assuming that morphology predicts ecology in Old and New World flycatchers (Corbin Chapter 2), one would predict that there is no difference in the shape or direction of the ecomorphological diversification if lineages have responded to similar foraging ecological demands (Keast 1972; Ricklefs and Travis 1980; Derrickson and Ricklefs 1989; Ricklefs and Nealen 1998). If there are differences, then the patterns may be explained by different levels of phylogenetic or ecological constraints on morphological evolution or different levels of predictive performance of ecology from morphology among the lineages (Weins and Rotenberry 1980; Weins 1989). The question then becomes: are the historical trajectories of the lineages concordant with respect to ecology? For example, due to a lower level of competition from distantly related species during the radiation of New World flycatchers, the rates of diversification may be expected to be higher when compared to the Old World flycatchers.7). "

This is where I'd throw in a section on corporate clearcutting in my Ph.D. thesis and I'd get kicked out or something. hahaha. Maybe I'd do some tree-sitting as an "ornithologist" that happened to be in a scheduled clearcut area! I could get some kind of government science permit clearance? hilarious. Competition between Old and New World flycatchers in light of globalization biological annihilation? This Ph.D. needs some more Postmodern apocalypse absurdity to spice it up.

"The Old World lineages coexist with each other and with several other lineages that exhibit this mode of foraging such as bee-eaters (Meropidae), rollers (Coraciidae), drongos (Dicruridae) and the Australo-Paupan robins (Petroicidae). Hence, it is possible that the amount of available unexploited habitats or other resources in the Old World were fewer than what was available to the New World flycatchers."

It's just STRANGE that there's mention of "habitat preference" yet no mention of clearcutting or logging, etc. or maybe commercial real estate?

"Both Old and New World flycatcher groups seem to have diversified along a habitat axis early in the evolutionary histories of these groups" Ah so their "ecomorphs" are ancient! hmm. The whole "Open" vs. "closed" habitat seems kind of sketchy. My flycatcher is described as "open" habitat but the same type of habitat in this ph.D. is called closed? 

"However, the existence of "ecomorphs" based upon a coarse categorization of habitat preference points to convergence in special instances of these species"...flycatching – which I defined as an airborne bird attempting to capture an airborne prey item, 2) hover-gleaning – airborne bird with stationary prey item, 3) standpicking – maneuver where no flight by the bird is required 4) pouncing – the bird flew to the ground for either stationary or mobile prey. New World Flycatchers actually do flycatching while the Old World "flycatchers" also do hover-gleaning and pouncing and standpicking... 

Hilarious! 

Black-and-orange flycatcher feed on insects by flycatching low over the ground (under 2m height[9]) and also pick insects from the ground.[6] -hhmm sounds like Hover-gleaning.

After the late Mesozoic breakup of Gondwana, South America spent most of the Cenozoic era as an island continent whose "splendid isolation" allowed its fauna to evolve into many forms found nowhere else on Earth, most of which are now extinct.[18] Its endemic mammals initially consisted primarily of metatherians (marsupials and sparassodonts), xenarthrans, and a diverse group of native ungulates known as the Meridiungulata: notoungulates (the "southern ungulates"), litopterns, astrapotheres, pyrotheres and xenungulates.[n 1][n 2] A few non-therian mammals – monotremes, gondwanatheres, dryolestids and possibly cimolodont multituberculates – were also present in the Paleocene; while none of these diversified significantly and most lineages did not survive long, forms like Necrolestes and Patagonia remained as recently as the Miocene.[25]

. Splendid Isolation: The Curious History of South American Mammals. New Haven: Yale University Press.

I didn't know about this "Cenozoic isolation" of South America. Ricklefs, R. E. (2002). "Splendid isolation: historical ecology of the South American passerine fauna". Journal of Avian Biology. 33 (3): 207–211. cited by "Explicit consideration of historical biogeography and conservatism of ancestral niches is necessary to comprehensively understand the mechanisms that mold gradients of biodiversity."

ecomorphs! "I tested whether asuboscine, the Alder Flycatcher (Empidonax alnorum), could discriminate between songs of neighbors and strangers and could recognize songs of individual neighbors using song playback experiments." hilarious.

"This is the first clear demonstration that, like their oscine relatives, suboscines can discriminate between songs of neighbors and strangers and recognize songs of individual neighbors." "bird species that learn their song show a tighter adjustment of song to noisy environments than those that do not learn"

fascinating! "it is doubtful whether species that lack song learning (e.g. suboscines) can adjust their songs to noisy environments."

C'mon Flycatchers you can do it!! If you can recognize individual neighbor songs then surely you can adjust to civilization noise like clearcuts, highways, factories, etc.? "Suboscines may be more vulnerable to acoustic pollution than oscines and thus less capable of colonizing cities or acoustically novel habitats." oops too bad!