Phylogenetic Relationship in Sulawesi Endemic Birds of White-Eye (Genus:Zosterops, Aves: Zosteropidae)

Sulawesi Island is a living laboratory that projected the fantastic imagery of the evolutionary process of its biota. The geologic action spanning million years that includes many different parts of Sulawesi components drive speciation process through expansion and isolation of Sulawesi population, including the White-eye. White-Eye is one of the groups of birds that exhibit complexity on its evolutionary process, especially, on its speciation. White-eye is a huge group that comprises around 15 genera and 136 species distributed in Africa, Asia and Australia. As a unique island, Sulawesi is a home of nine species of Zosterops white-eye among which five species are endemic to Sulawesi. In this paper, we present our research on the relationship between Sulawesi endemic white-eye. We sequenced ND2 and Cyt-B region from a total of 47 samples from five species of Zosterops, i.e.  Zosterops atrifrons ,  Z. anomalus ,  Z. montanus ,  Z. wallacei , and  Lophozosterops squamiceps ; from which two species are endemic to Sulawesi. The results showed that the Zosterops from insular Sulawesi is closely related to each other than the population from outside of the island. The genetic differentiation between population is also detected, and it resembles the known species and subspecies delineation. This study is also revealed the unknown status of the population of  Z. atrifrons . Therefore, we conclude that the insular population of Sulawesi white-eye demonstrate the evolutionary process that forming the endemic species in Sulawesi.