Parallel Radiations in the Primary Clades of Birds

Fain, Matthew G.; Houde, Peter

doi:10.1554/04-235

Cited by 45 publications

(64 citation statements)

References 79 publications

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“…S5) is found in ratites (including ostrich) but not tinamous, thus conflicting with the other indels and analyses of nucleotide substitutions. Vertebrate indels consistently exhibit less homoplasy than nucleotide substitutions (26,34), and an examio A group is polyphyletic if its defining characters are convergent (29). Ratites have long been defined by the absence of a keel on their sternum (e.g., ref.…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Phylogenomic evidence for multiple losses of flight in ratite birds

Harshman

Braun

et al. 2008

Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A.

195

227

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Ratites (ostriches, emus, rheas, cassowaries, and kiwis) are large, flightless birds that have long fascinated biologists. Their current distribution on isolated southern land masses is believed to reflect the breakup of the paleocontinent of Gondwana. The prevailing view is that ratites are monophyletic, with the flighted tinamous as their sister group, suggesting a single loss of flight in the common ancestry of ratites. However, phylogenetic analyses of 20 unlinked nuclear genes reveal a genome-wide signal that unequivocally places tinamous within ratites, making ratites polyphyletic and suggesting multiple losses of flight. Phenomena that can mislead phylogenetic analyses, including long branch attraction, base compositional bias, discordance between gene trees and species trees, and sequence alignment errors, have been eliminated as explanations for this result. The most plausible hypothesis requires at least three losses of flight and explains the many morphological and behavioral similarities among ratites by parallel or convergent evolution. Finally, this phylogeny demands fundamental reconsideration of proposals that relate ratite evolution to continental drift.convergence ͉ flightlessness ͉ Paleognath ͉ homoplasy ͉ vicariance biogeography

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Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Phylogenomic evidence for multiple losses of flight in ratite birds

Harshman

Braun

et al. 2008

Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A.

195

227

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…Hypothetical extinction of all dispersive Coturnix species, along with persistence of the Margaroperdix/Anurophasis lineages, would result in the fifth stage, which could easily be misinterpreted as marine dispersal by these non-vagile species. Examples of 'stage five' in this framework include relictual lineages such as ratites [5,7], New Zealand wrens [16] and the New Caledonian kagu [69]. However, without a fossil record, dispersive ancestors in these and other stage-five examples can only be inferred.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

How do seemingly non-vagile clades accomplish trans-marine dispersal? Trait and dispersal evolution in the landfowl (Aves: Galliformes)

et al. 2017

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Dispersal ability is a key factor in determining insular distributions and island community composition, yet non-vagile terrestrial organisms widely occur on oceanic islands. The landfowl (pheasants, partridges, grouse, turkeys, quails and relatives) are generally poor dispersers, but the Old World quail (Coturnix) are a notable exception. These birds evolved small body sizes and high-aspectratio wing shapes, and hence are capable of trans-continental migrations and trans-oceanic colonization. Two monotypic partridge genera, Margaroperdix of Madagascar and Anurophasis of alpine New Guinea, may represent additional examples of trans-marine dispersal in landfowl, but their body size and wing shape are typical of poorly dispersive continental species. Here, we estimate historical relationships of quail and their relatives using phylogenomics, and infer body size and wing shape evolution in relation to trans-marine dispersal events. Our results show that Margaroperdix and Anurophasis are nested within the Coturnix quail, and are each 'island giants' that independently evolved from dispersive, Coturnix-like ancestral populations that colonized and were subsequently isolated on Madagascar and New Guinea. This evolutionary cycle of gain and loss of dispersal ability, coupled with extinction of dispersive taxa, can result in the false appearance that non-vagile taxa somehow underwent rare oceanic dispersal.

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“…The more 'accipitrid '-like morphology of Pelargopappus (e.g. tarsometatarsus with a more strongly developed trochlea for the second toe and a more pronounced medial hypotarsal crest) may, however, turn out to represent the primitive condition in Sagittariidae, as some recent phylogenetic studies support a sister-group relationship between Sagittariidae and Accipitridae (Sibley & Ahlquist, 1990;Griffiths, 1994;Fain & Houde, 2004 ;contra, however, Mayr & Clarke, 2003). …”

Section: Composition Of the Paleogene European Avifauna ( 1) Palamentioning

confidence: 99%

The Paleogene fossil record of birds in Europe

2005

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The Paleogene (Paleocene-Oligocene) fossil record of birds in Europe is reviewed and recent and fossil taxa are placed into a phylogenetic framework, based on published cladistic analyses. The pre-Oligocene European avifauna is characterized by the complete absence of passeriform birds, which today are the most diverse and abundant avian taxon. Representatives of small non-passeriform perching birds thus probably had similar ecological niches before the Oligocene to those filled by modern passerines. The occurrence of passerines towards the Lower Oligocene appears to have had a major impact on these birds, and the surviving crown-group members of many small arboreal Eocene taxa show highly specialized feeding strategies not found or rare in passeriform birds. It is detailed that no crown-group members of modern 'families ' are known from preOligocene deposits of Europe, or anywhere else. The phylogenetic position of Paleogene birds thus indicates that diversification of the crown-groups of modern avian 'families ' did not take place before the Oligocene, irrespective of their relative position within Neornithes (crown-group birds). The Paleogene fossil record of birds does not even support crown-group diversification of Galliformes, one of the most basal taxa of neognathous birds, before the Oligocene, and recent molecular studies that dated diversification of galliform crown-group taxa into the Middle Cretaceous are shown to be based on an incorrect interpretation of the fossil taxa used for molecular clock calibrations. Several taxa that occur in the Paleogene of Europe have a very different distribution than their closest extant relatives. The modern survivors of these Paleogene lineages are not evenly distributed over the continents, and especially the great number of taxa that are today restricted to South and Central America is noteworthy. The occurrence of stem-lineage representatives of many taxa that today have a restricted Southern Hemisphere distribution conflicts with recent hypotheses on a Cretaceous vicariant origin of these taxa, which were deduced from the geographical distribution of the basal crown-group members.

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Parallel Radiations in the Primary Clades of Birds

Cited by 45 publications

References 79 publications

Phylogenomic evidence for multiple losses of flight in ratite birds

Phylogenomic evidence for multiple losses of flight in ratite birds

How do seemingly non-vagile clades accomplish trans-marine dispersal? Trait and dispersal evolution in the landfowl (Aves: Galliformes)

The Paleogene fossil record of birds in Europe

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