Editing Algerian nuthatch (section)

===Biogeography===
In 1976, the Swiss ornithologist [[Paul Géroudet]] suggested that the Mesogean nuthatches once inhabited a fairly continuous belt of [[conifers]] around the Mediterranean, which had become fragmented, leaving only a few hard-to-reach refuges where these different species were able to evolve in isolation.<ref name="Paul Géroudet ">{{Cite journal |last=Géroudet |first=Paul|title= À propos de la Sittelle kabyle |trans-title=About the Kabyle Nuthatch|journal=Nos Oiseaux|date=December 1976|volume=33|issue=8|pages=340–342|language=fr}}</ref> In 1998, his phylogeny having been established, Pasquet concluded that the paleogeographic history of the group would be as follows: the divergence between the two main clades of the "''Sitta canadensis'' group" appeared more than 5 million years ago, at the end of the Miocene, when the ''S. krueperi'' and ''S. ledanti'' clade settled in the [[Mediterranean basin]] at the time of the [[Messinian salinity crisis]]; the two species making up the clade diverged 1.75 million years ago. The other clade split into three, with populations leaving [[Asia]] from the east and giving rise to the North American red-breasted nuthatch, and then, about a million years ago, from the west, marking the separation between the Corsican and Chinese nuthatches.<ref name="Packert2014 molecular"/>