The Utility of Fossil Taxa and the Evolution of Modern Birds: Commentary and Analysis

Living Dinosaurs: The Evolutionary History of Modern Birds

Volumn , Issue , 2011, Pages 146-154

  Dyke, Gareth ^a   Gardiner, Eoin ^b  

^a UNIVERSITY COLLEGE DUBLIN   (Ireland)

^b UNIVERSITY OF BRISTOL   (United Kingdom)

Author keywords

"classic confidence intervals" underestimating divergence dates, findings of fossils being constant through time; Biggest problems, with modern bird fossil records interpretation of records, problematic; Cenozoic avian fossil record more complete than its Mesozoic counterpart; Cenozoic collectorship curve with Mesozoic collectorship curves of complete Mesozoic taxa and enantiornithine Mesozoic taxa; Collectorship of birds from the Paleocene and Eocene; Current hypothesis, that clade Anseriformes likely diverged significantly earlier in time, than did Piciformes; Graphical depiction of simple gap analysis results failing to support the hypothesis; History of ornithological classification lacking clear consensus on interrelationships of major clades of living birds; Understanding of taxonomic diversity hand in hand with phylogenetics, based on osteology; Utility of fossil taxa and evolution of modern birds commentary and analysis

Indexed keywords

EID: 84886193462     PISSN: None     EISSN: None     Source Type: Book    
DOI: 10.1002/9781119990475.ch5     Document Type: Chapter

References (23)

1. Benton MJ. 1999. Early origins of modem birds and mammals: molecules vs. morphology. Bioessays 21: 1043-1051.
2. Bleiweiss R. 1998. Fossil gap analysis supports early Tertiary origin of trophically diverse avian orders. Geology 26: 323-326.
3. Chiappe LM. 2007. Glorified Dinosaurs: the Origin and Early Evolution of Birds. Hoboken: John Wiley & Sons.
4. Clarke JA, Tambussi CP, Noriega JI, Erickson GM, Ketcham RA. 2005. Definitive fossil evidence for the extant avian radiation in the Cretaceous. Nature 433: 305-308.
5. Cooper A, Penny D. 1997. Mass survival of birds across the KT boundary: molecular evidence. Science 275: 1109-1113.
6. Cooper A, Fortey R. 1998. Evolutionary explosions and the phylogenetic fuse. Trends in Ecology and Evolution 13: 151-156.
7. Cracraft J. 2001. Avian evolution, Gondwana biogeogra-phy and the Cretaceous-Tertiary mass extinction event. Proceedings of the Royal Society of London, Series B (Biological Sciences) 268: 459-469.
8. Dyke GJ. 2001. The evolution of birds in the early Tertiary: systematics and patterns of diversification. Geological Journal 36: 305-315.
9. Dyke GJ, van Tuinen M. 2004. The evolutionary radiation of modern birds Neornithes: reconciling molecules, morphology and the fossil record. Zoological Journal of the Linnean Society 141: 153-177.
10. Feduccia A. 1995. Explosive evolution in Tertiary birds and mammals. Science 267: 637-638.
11. Feduccia A. 1999. The Origin and Evolution of Birds, 2nd edn. New Haven: Yale University Press.
12. Feduccia A. 2003. "Big bang" for Tertiary birds? Trends in Ecology and Evolution, 18: 172-176.
13. Fountaine TMR, Benton MJ, Dyke GJ, Nudds RL. 2005. The quality of the fossil record of Mesozoic birds. Proceedings of the Royal Society of London, Series B (Biological Sciences) 272: 289-294.
14. Hackett SJ, Kimball RT, Reddy S, Bowie RCK, Braun EL, Braun MJ, Chojnowski JL, Cox WA, Han K-L, Harshman J, Huddleston CJ, Marks BD, Miglia KJ, Moore WS, Sheldon FH, Steadman DW, Witt CC, Yuri T. 2008. A phylogenomic study of birds reveals their evolutionary history. Science 320: 1763-1768.
15. Harrison CJO, Walker CA. 1975. The Bradycnemidae: a new family of owls from the Upper Cretaceous of Romania. Palaeontology 18: 563-570.
16. Hope S. 2002. The Mesozoic radiation of Neornithes. In: Mesozoic Birds: Above the Heads of Dinosaurs, ChiappeLM, Witmer LM (eds). Berkeley: University of California Press;339-388.
17. Livezey BC, Zusi RL. 2007. Higher-order phylogeny of modern birds Theropoda, Aves: Neornithes based on comparative anatomy. II. Analysis and discussion. Zoological Journal of the Linnean Society 149: 1-95.
18. Marshall CR. 1999. Fossil gap analysis supports early Tertiary origin of trophically diverse avian orders: Comment. Geology 27: 95.
19. Mayr G. 2009. Paleogene Fossil Birds. Springer, Heidelberg.
20. Mayr G, Clarke JA. 2003. The deep divergences of neornithine birds: a phylogenetic analysis of morphological characters. Cladistics 19: 527-553.
21. O'Connor JK, Dyke GJ. 2010. A re-assessment of Sinornis santensis and Cathayornis yandica (Aves: Enantiornithes). In Proceedings of the VII International Meeting of the Society of Avian Paleontology and Evolution, Boles WE, Worthy TH (eds). Records of the Australian Museum 62(1): 7-20.
22. Paton T, Haddrath O, Baker AJ. 2002. Complete mito-chondrial DNA genome sequences show that modern birds are not descended from transitional shorebirds. Proceedings of the Royal Society of London, Series B (Biological Sciences) 269: 839-846.
23. Schuh RT. 2000. Biological Systematics: Principles and Applications. Ithaca: Cornell University Press.