Annotated checklist of the birds of Brazil by the Brazilian ornithological records committee / Lista comentada das aves do Brasil pelo Comitê Brasileiro de Registros Ornitológicos

Piacentini, VDQ, Aleixo, A, Agne, CE, Maurício, GN, Pacheco, JF, Bravo, GA, Brito, GRR, Naka, LN, Olmos, F, Posso, S, Silveira, LF, Betini, GS, Carrano, E, Franz, I, Lees, AC, Lima, LM, Pioli, D, Schunck, F, do Amaral, FR, Bencke, GA, Cohn-Haft, M, Figueiredo, LFA, Straube, FC and Cesari, E (2015) Annotated checklist of the birds of Brazil by the Brazilian ornithological records committee / Lista comentada das aves do Brasil pelo Comitê Brasileiro de Registros Ornitológicos. Revista Brasileira de Ornitologia, 23 (2). pp. 91-298. ISSN 0103-5657

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Abstract

Since 2005, the Brazilian Ornithological Records Committee (CBRO) has published updated checklists of Brazilian birds almost every year. Herein, we present a completely new and annotated version of our checklist. For the first time, we list all bird subspecies known from Brazil that are currently accepted by at least one key ornithological reference work. The inclusion of the subspecies should be seen as a synthesis, and not as a taxonomic endorsement. As such, we include in the new checklist 1919 avian species, 910 of which are treated as polytypic in reference works (2042 subspecies), totaling 3051 taxa at the species and subspecies level. We anticipate that several of the subspecies included in our list may be subject to future taxonomic upgrades to species status, while others will probably be shown to be invalid in the light of future taxonomic studies. The results highlight Brazil as a megadiverse country and reinforce the need for proper enforcement of political tools, laws and international commitments assumed by the country to preserve its biodiversity.