Timing the Extant Avian Radiation: The Rise of Modern Birds, and the Importance of Modeling Molecular Rate Variation

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dc.contributor.authorField, Daniel J.
dc.contributor.authorBerv, Jacob S.
dc.contributor.authorHsiang, Allison Y.
dc.contributor.authorLanfear, Robert
dc.contributor.authorLandis, Micheal J.
dc.contributor.authorDornburg, Alex
dc.date.accessioned2022-10-27T01:06:49Z
dc.date.issued2020
dc.date.updated2021-11-28T07:25:10Z
dc.description.abstractUnravelling the phylogenetic relationships among the major groups of living birds has been described as the greatest outstanding problem in dinosaur systematics. Recent work has identified portions of the avian tree of life that are particularly challenging to reconstruct, perhaps as a result of rapid cladogenesis early in crown bird evolutionary history (specifically, the interval immediately following the end-Cretaceous mass extinction). At face value this hypothesis enjoys support from the crown bird fossil record, which documents the first appearances of most major crown bird lineages in the early Cenozoic-in line with a model of rapid postextinction niche-filling among surviving avian lineages. However, molecular-clock analyses have yielded strikingly variable estimates for the age of crown birds, and conflicting inferences on the impact of the end-Cretaceous mass extinction on the extant bird radiation. This uncertainty has often been ascribed to a patchy avian fossil record, but the possibility of model misspecification in molecular divergence-time analyses represents an important and relatively underexplored alternative hypothesis. Here, we highlight the necessity of further developing and using models that account for coordinated variation in rates of molecular evolution across a phylogeny (e.g., molecular early burst) as a means of assessing support for a rapid post-Cretaceous radiation of crown birds. We discuss how relationships between life history and substitution rates can mislead divergence-time studies that do not account for directional changes in substitution rates over time, and suggest that these effects might have caused some of the variation in existing molecular date estimates for birds. We suggest multiple paths forward that could help resolve this and similar conflicts within other major eukaryotic clades.en_AU
dc.format.mimetypeapplication/pdfen_AU
dc.identifier.issn0003-0090en_AU
dc.identifier.urihttp://hdl.handle.net/1885/276215
dc.language.isoen_AUen_AU
dc.publisherAmerican Museum of Natural Historyen_AU
dc.rights© 2021 The authorsen_AU
dc.sourceBulletin of the American Museum of Natural Historyen_AU
dc.titleTiming the Extant Avian Radiation: The Rise of Modern Birds, and the Importance of Modeling Molecular Rate Variationen_AU
dc.typeJournal articleen_AU
local.bibliographicCitation.lastpage181en_AU
local.bibliographicCitation.startpage159en_AU
local.contributor.affiliationField, Daniel J., University of Cambridgeen_AU
local.contributor.affiliationBerv, Jacob S., Cornell Universityen_AU
local.contributor.affiliationHsiang, Allison Y., Swedish Museum of Natural Historyen_AU
local.contributor.affiliationLanfear, Robert, College of Science, ANUen_AU
local.contributor.affiliationLandis, Micheal J., Yale Universityen_AU
local.contributor.affiliationDornburg, Alex, North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciencesen_AU
local.contributor.authoremailu4595144@anu.edu.auen_AU
local.contributor.authoruidLanfear, Robert, u4595144en_AU
local.description.embargo2099-12-31
local.description.notesImported from ARIESen_AU
local.identifier.absfor310400 - Evolutionary biologyen_AU
local.identifier.ariespublicationa383154xPUB18671en_AU
local.identifier.citationvolume440en_AU
local.identifier.thomsonID000561794300006
local.identifier.uidSubmittedBya383154en_AU
local.type.statusPublished Versionen_AU

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