Macroevolutionary convergence connects morphological form to ecological function in birds
Macroevolutionary convergence connects morphological form to ecological function in birds
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DOI：
10.1038/s41559-019-1070-4
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发表时间：
2020-01-13
影响因子：
16.8
通讯作者：
Tobias, Joseph A.
中科院分区：
文献类型：
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作者：
Pigot, Alex L.;Sheard, Catherine;Tobias, Joseph A.
动物已经分化成令人眼花缭乱的各种形态形式，利用营养生态位的复杂配置。它们的形态多样性被广泛用作生态系统功能的指标，但动物性状对营养生态位和相关生态过程的预测程度尚不清楚。本文通过对bbbb99 %鸟类9个关键形态特征的测量，表明鸟类营养多样性是由一个具有四维特征的空间来描述的。该空间内的物种在主要生态位轴上的定位精度为70-85%，包括营养水平、饮食资源类型和觅食行为的精细尺度变化。系统发育分析表明，这些形式-功能关联反映了向可预测的性状组合的趋同，表明形态变异通过进化适应被组织成有限的一组维度。我们的研究结果建立了鸟类功能性状所需的最小维数，以预测营养生态位的细微变化，并为探索鸟类多样性的起源、功能和保护提供了一个全球框架。利用形态特征预测生态位空间和生态系统功能具有一定的挑战性。基于9个关键形态特征，鸟类营养多样性可以简化为4个维度，这反映了性状组合的收敛性。
Animals have diversified into a bewildering variety of morphological forms exploiting a complex configuration of trophic niches. Their morphological diversity is widely used as an index of ecosystem function, but the extent to which animal traits predict trophic niches and associated ecological processes is unclear. Here we use the measurements of nine key morphological traits for >99% bird species to show that avian trophic diversity is described by a trait space with four dimensions. The position of species within this space maps with 70-85% accuracy onto major niche axes, including trophic level, dietary resource type and finer-scale variation in foraging behaviour. Phylogenetic analyses reveal that these form-function associations reflect convergence towards predictable trait combinations, indicating that morphological variation is organized into a limited set of dimensions by evolutionary adaptation. Our results establish the minimum dimensionality required for avian functional traits to predict subtle variation in trophic niches and provide a global framework for exploring the origin, function and conservation of bird diversity.Predicting ecological niche space and ecosystem function from morphological traits is challenging. Here, the authors show that avian trophic diversity can be reduced to four dimensions, based on nine key morphological traits, which reflects convergence of trait combinations.