The Origin and Diversification of Birds

Brusatte, Stephen L.; O’Connor, Jingmai K.; Jarvis, Erich D.

doi:10.1016/j.cub.2015.08.003

Cited by 243 publications

(234 citation statements)

References 99 publications

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“…The fusion of the manus and pelvis at such an early stage in avian evolution may have been caused by modifications in genes and/or developmental paths. The origin of flight has significantly changed the bauplan of birds (42). Given the potential functional benefits, the complete fusion in the manus and pelvis in some early birds, but only rarely occurring, may reflect the refinement of flight capability, suggesting developmental plasticity (43).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Insight into the growth pattern and bone fusion of basal birds from an Early Cretaceous enantiornithine bird

Wang

Zhou

2017

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

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Bird skeletons exhibit remarkable modifications that allow for flight. The most distinguishable features are the fusion of the bones in the hand, feet, and pelvis into composite rigid and bony structures. However, the historical origins of these avian bone fusions remain elusive because of the rarity of transitional fossils and developmental studies on modern birds. Here, we describe an Early Cretaceous bird (120 Mya) that has fully fused alular-major metacarpals and pelvis. We discuss the manus and pelvis fusions across Paravian phylogeny and demonstrate that these features evolved independently across nonavian theropods, Enantiornithes, and Ornithuromorpha. The fusions of these bones are rare in known nonavian theropods and Early Cretaceous birds but are well established among Late Cretaceous and modern birds, revealing a complicated evolution pattern unrecognized previously. We posit that the developments of bone fusion were polymorphic close to the origin of birds, resulting in the varying degrees of fusion in Paraves. However, that development polymorphism appears to be fundamentally restricted along the line to modern birds by the Late Cretaceous, where all birds have a completely fused manus and pelvis. Such changes likely correspond to a refinement of flight capability. Alternatively, the degree of bone fusion in this primitive bird may have been related to modifications in genes or developmental paths. Future studies and fossil discoveries are required to clarify these hypotheses and pinpoint the developmental pathways involving the bone fusions in early avian evolution through to their modern pattern.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Insight into the growth pattern and bone fusion of basal birds from an Early Cretaceous enantiornithine bird

Wang

Zhou

2017

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

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“…This makes it hard to determine ancestral character states without help from the fossil record 1,41 . For example, in the absence of a fossil record we would not know that the first tetrapods were not fully terrestrial 42 , or that they had more than five digits per limb 43 , that the first lungfish were marine 41,44 , that fivefold symmetry is not ancestral for echinoderms 45 , that many of the synapomorphies of living birds evolved before flight 46 , nor could we have inferred the unexpected morphology of Ardipithecus, which lies close to the last common ancestor of humans and chimpanzees 47 .…”

Section: The Fifth Law Of Palaeobiologymentioning

confidence: 99%

Five palaeobiological laws needed to understand the evolution of the living biota

Marshall

2017

Nat Ecol Evol

179

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TitleFive palaeobiological laws needed to understand the evolution of the living biota O ne of the cornerstones of evolutionary theory is the idea of differential survival. The fact of death, the termination of the lives of individuals, is central to evolutionary change. For biologists working on the timescales of generations, the importance of differential survival has been well understood and well studied since Darwin. On longer timescales, however, although it is well recognized that there has been extensive termination of unique morphologies and lineages, study of the living biota alone offers relatively little when trying to determine the importance of these extinctions, given that among the living we only have direct data on the survivors. This presents significant challenges when trying to elucidate the evolutionary process that produced the living biota.Fortunately, the fossil record provides unique and invaluable data on the nature of extinction, including its selectivity, recurrence times, magnitudes and causes. While there has been a dramatic increase in the number of integrated palaeontological and neontological studies [1][2][3][4] , from a palaeobiological perspective, the field of biology has not yet fully assimilated the fundamental findings from the fossil record. Here I summarize these findings in the context of their relevance to our understanding of the living biota. I express this knowledge in the form of simple laws (Box 1), in the hope of facilitating the incorporation of the longstanding and fundamental discoveries of palaeontology into the foundations of thinking in evolutionary biology and ecology, something that has yet to be fully realized. The first law of palaeobiologyLineages become extinct. While the notion of immortality at the level of individuals has been rejected for millennia, it was not until around 1800 that the idea that species could become extinct was established through the discovery of fossils that could not be ascribed to any living species 5 . More formally, the first law can be expressed in terms of the probability that clade will ultimately go extinct, P e :Five palaeobiological laws needed to understand the evolution of the living biota Charles R. MarshallThe foundations of several disciplines can be expressed as simple quantitative laws, for example, Newton's laws or the laws of thermodynamics. Here I present five laws derived from fossil data that describe the relationships among species extinc tion and longevity, species richness, origination rates, extinction rates and diversification. These statements of our palaeo biological knowledge constitute a dimension largely hidden from view when studying the living biota, which are nonetheless crucial to the study of evolution and ecology even for groups with poor or non existent fossil records. These laws encapsulate: the critical fact of extinction; that species are typically geologically short lived, and thus that the number of extinct species typically dwarfs the number of living species; that extinction and orig...

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“…For example, the SR of two IBAs Anuradhapura Sanctuary and Sinharaja MABR are 172 and 182 where the PD of them are 5492.97 and 5241.96 respectively. The reason for this is that not all the species contribute equally for PD (Brusatte et al, 2015). The species that have evolved long ago have greater contribution to PD while the recently diverged species have lesser contribution (Hackett et al, 2008; Table 01).…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Since the global distribution and abundance of taxa is not uniform (Brusatte et al 2015, Jetz et al 2014, similar to what has been recognized in IUCN red listing criteria (National Red List, 2012), the conservation prioritization should recognize the heterogeneity of evolutionary and ecological criteria across the landscape. Therefore, global PD, ED or EDGE values do not fit to assess the level of accumulation of lineages and risk of local extinctions of globally widespread species in the regional or national level (e.g.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Evolutionary distinctness of Important Bird Areas (IBAs) of Sri Lanka: Do the species-rich wet zone forests safeguard Sri Lanka’s genetic heritage?

Abeyarama

Seneviratne

2017

Ceylon J. Sci.

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Different components of biodiversity cannot be treated equally due to the limitations of knowledge and resources, and the heterogeneity in the distribution of biodiversity in the landscape. Therefore, biodiversity should be prioritized in effective sitebased conservation. Parameters related to ecology, sociology and economics are primarily used for this prioritization process. Genetic and evolutionary history is broadly ignored. Using Important Bird Areas (areas of high avian diversity or density, defined based on several key criteria of species richness and abandons) as a model, here we attempted to use several key evolutionary tools in biodiversity prioritization with the aim of testing their applicability in an island nation where evolutionary relationships of species are yet to be fully appreciated. We developed a DNA-based phylogenetic tree for the 342 total species of birds recorded in Sri Lanka's 71 IBAs. We used DNA sequence archives at www.birdtree.org for closely-related crown nodes of Sri Lankan species and higher-order phylogenetic backbone for represented taxonomic orders to construct the phylogenetic tree. Using this tree, we calculated the Phylogenetic Diversity (PD), Evolutionary Distinctness (ED) and the extinction risk of deep lineages (EDGE scores) for each IBA. Batrachostomus moniliger (Ceylon Frogmouth) is the most ED species while Otus thilohoffmanni (Serendib Scopes-owl) is the most EDGE species for Sri Lanka. Sri Lanka's premier dry zone National Parks, Yala, Bundala and Udawalawe are the top ranked IBAs in PD, ED and EDGE scores. Except Sinharaja MAB Reserve and Knuckles, all other wet zone IBAs, which are characterized by their high endemicity and biodiversity were not ranked among the top ten IBAs for above evolutionary parameters. Mixing of both continental and insular lineages in the dry zone due to its proximity to mainland, the presence of wetlands that support migratory lineages and the movement of wet zone taxa along the riverine forests towards the dry zone could have increased the PD and ED scores in dry zone IBAs. However, wet zone IBAs are better at keeping the avian genetic composition that is unique to Sri Lanka by holding most of the avian endemics. For islands like Sri Lanka, global indices do not reflect the local evolutionary and conservation status. Effective site-based conservation programs that are aimed at preventing local extinctions therefore, must recognize the heterogeneity of biodiversity across the landscape. Our results show that the evolutionary parameters such as PD, ED and EDGE score are effective tools to refine the conventional indices used in habitat prioritization for Sri Lanka.

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The Origin and Diversification of Birds

Cited by 243 publications

References 99 publications

Insight into the growth pattern and bone fusion of basal birds from an Early Cretaceous enantiornithine bird

Insight into the growth pattern and bone fusion of basal birds from an Early Cretaceous enantiornithine bird

Five palaeobiological laws needed to understand the evolution of the living biota

Evolutionary distinctness of Important Bird Areas (IBAs) of Sri Lanka: Do the species-rich wet zone forests safeguard Sri Lanka’s genetic heritage?

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