Wang, M and Lloyd, GT orcid.org/0000-0001-6887-3981 (2016) Rates of morphological evolution are heterogeneous in early cretaceous birds. Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences, 283 (1828). 20160214. ISSN 0962-8452
Abstract
The Early Cretaceous is a critical interval in the early history of birds. Exceptional fossils indicate that important evolutionary novelties such as a pygostyle and a keeled sternum had already arisen in Early Cretaceous taxa, bridging much of the morphological gap between Archaeopteryx and crown birds. However, detailed features of basal bird evolution remain obscure because of both the small sample of fossil taxa previously considered and a lack of quantitative studies assessing rates of morphological evolution. Here we apply a recently available phylogenetic method and associated sensitivity tests to a large data matrix ofmorphological characters to quantify rates ofmorphological evolution in Early Cretaceous birds.Our results reveal that although rates were highly heterogeneous between different Early Cretaceous avian lineages, consistent patterns of significantly high or low rates were harder to pinpoint. Nevertheless, evidence for accelerated evolutionary rates is strongest at the point when Ornithuromorpha (the clade comprises all extant birds and descendants from their most recent common ancestors) split from Enantiornithes (a diverse clade that went extinct at the end-Cretaceous), consistent with the hypothesis that this key split opened up new niches and ultimately led to greater diversity for these two dominant clades of Mesozoic birds.
Metadata
Item Type: | Article |
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Authors/Creators: |
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Dates: |
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Institution: | The University of Leeds |
Academic Units: | The University of Leeds > Faculty of Environment (Leeds) > School of Earth and Environment (Leeds) > Earth Surface Science Institute (ESSI) (Leeds) |
Depositing User: | Symplectic Publications |
Date Deposited: | 09 Jan 2018 16:04 |
Last Modified: | 09 Jan 2018 16:04 |
Status: | Published |
Publisher: | The Royal Society |
Identification Number: | 10.1098/rspb.2016.0214 |
Open Archives Initiative ID (OAI ID): | oai:eprints.whiterose.ac.uk:125270 |