Phylogeny of Passeriformes (Aves) of Afghanistan with the Emphasis of Herat Province

Passeriformes are the largest group of birds all over the world, including about 60% of all living birds. Due to high degrees of similarityand convergent evolution between passerine's families, morphological studies yielded different results relative to DNA-DNA hybridization researches. Molecular studies supported the traditional classification and represented that Passerida is the largest group within Passeriformes, which constitute of three super families: Muscicapoidea, Sylvioidea and Passeroidea. Based on the researches, about 483 species are listed for Afghanistan, from which 140 species belong to Passeriformes captured from Kabul province. In the present survey 90 avian specimens were captured from thirteen localities in Heart province. COXI gene was extracted and sequenced from seventy individuals, which 69 individuals were belong to Passeriformes. In addition, 244 CoxI sequences of Afghanistan's passerines were retrieved from genbank and were added to our data. Our Bayesian analyses showed that from 28 studied families, monophyly of 17 ones were strongly supported, 2 ones represented with only one individual, one family was paraphyletic and the other eight families were polyphyletic groups. Besides, monophyly of all the three superfamilies of Passerida along with Corvoidea were not confirmed in our study.