Modernization, diversification, and domination: Macroevolutionary origins of living bird diversity

现代化、多样化和统治：现生鸟类多样性的宏观进化起源

• 批准号: MR/S032177/1
• 负责人: Daniel Field
• 金额: $ 116.18万
• 依托单位: University of Cambridge
• 依托单位国家: 英国
• 项目类别: Fellowship
• 财政年份: 2019
• 资助国家: 英国
• 起止时间: 2019 至 无数据
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://gtr.ukri.org/projects?ref=MR%2FS032177%2F1
• 关键词: Modernization; diversification; domination; Macroevolutionary; origins

Modern birds comprise over 10,000 living species, occupying a dizzying range of niche space and inhabiting virtually every corner of the modern world. In order to study the origins of this spectacular diversity, as well as the stepwise sequence by which biologically modern birds came to be, insights from the Mesozoic fossil record of feathered dinosaurs are critical, as are early Cenozoic fossils documenting the rise of modern birds. Here, I outline an ambitious research programme composed of distinct, yet broadly overlapping lines of inquiry aimed at illuminating the early evolutionary history of birds. This work will bring us closer than ever before to a more complete understanding of the origins of one of Earth's most dominant living groups of organisms. The proposed programme builds on my high-profile research in multiple areas of avian evolutionary biology and will deliver fundamental insights into some of the most important and longest-standing questions in avian macroevolution. Work will be divided into projects aimed at clarifying How, Where, and When the spectacular diversity of living birds, their specialised features, and their extraordinary phenotypic disparity have arisen. These studies will draw on abundant new three-dimensional data from pivotally important undescribed fossils, cutting edge visualisation techniques, and a wealth of novel phenotypic and genomic data from ongoing international collaborations.i) How: Tracing the origin of the modern avian skull, and sophisticated avian flight. Three dimensionally preserved fossils are extremely rare among the closest relatives of modern birds from the Age of Dinosaurs. Exquisite new fossils from this interval, uniquely, exhibit both three-dimensionally preserved skulls and skeletons. High-resolution CT scanning combined with three-dimensional mathematical analyses will elucidate the origin of the modern avian brain, and cutting-edge range-of-motion analyses will illuminate how the modern avian flight stroke evolved.ii) Where: The origin of modern avian geographic patterns, and the role of historical climate fluctuations in structuring avian distributions. We have previously shown that the geographic distributions of many groups of modern birds have fluctuated dramatically through their evolutionary history, but the causes of these inter-continental range shifts are unclear. By combining the latest palaeoclimate models with cutting-edge 'niche modelling' approaches, we will test-for the first time-the extent to which climatic change over the last 66 million years may have contributed to these patterns and predict future climate-driven geographic changes.iii) When: Refining the timing of the modern avian radiation. By taking a three-pronged approach (developing new divergence time models, generating new sequence data from understudied species, and evaluating new fossil calibrations) we are poised to generate the first comprehensive and accurately time-scaled picture of the modern bird tree of life, a fundamental step toward discerning the patterns and processes that have generated Earth's modern bird biodiversity. This will also shed light on how major events in Earth history, like the mass extinction event that killed the giant dinosaurs, have shaped avian evolution. This interdisciplinary project will have impacts on teaching, museum exhibition, digital collections building, and media, and will involve many early career scientists. New data from this project (e.g. CT scans of key modern birds and new fossils) will provide a digital legacy to be made freely available to all. These data will facilitate myriad future studies on avian evolution, and combined with media exposure accompanying publications, will educate both young and old about evolution and palaeontology. To this end, visual data from this project will be incorporated into an exhibit at the Sedgwick Museum of Earth Sciences, allowing the public to manipulate both digital and physical specimens.

现代鸟类包括超过10，000种生物，占据了令人眼花缭乱的生态位空间，几乎栖息在现代世界的每个角落。为了研究这种壮观的多样性的起源，以及生物学上现代鸟类的逐步序列，中生代有羽毛恐龙化石记录的见解是至关重要的，就像记录现代鸟类崛起的新生代早期化石一样。在这里，我概述了一个雄心勃勃的研究计划，由不同的，但广泛重叠的调查线，旨在阐明鸟类的早期进化史。这项工作将使我们比以往任何时候都更接近于更完整地了解地球上最主要的生物种群之一的起源。该计划建立在我在鸟类进化生物学多个领域的高调研究基础上，将为鸟类宏观进化中一些最重要和最长期存在的问题提供基本见解。工作将分为项目，旨在澄清如何，在哪里，以及何时壮观的多样性的活鸟类，他们的专门功能，以及他们的非凡的表型差异已经出现。这些研究将利用大量来自重要的未描述化石的新三维数据、尖端的可视化技术以及来自正在进行的国际合作的大量新的表型和基因组数据。i）如何：追踪现代鸟类头骨的起源，以及复杂的鸟类飞行。在恐龙时代现代鸟类的近亲中，三维保存的化石极为罕见。这一时期的精美新化石独特地展示了三维保存的头骨和骨骼。高分辨率CT扫描结合三维数学分析将阐明现代鸟类大脑的起源，尖端的运动范围分析将阐明现代鸟类飞行中风是如何演变的。我们以前已经表明，许多现代鸟类群体的地理分布在其进化历史中发生了巨大的波动，但这些洲际范围变化的原因尚不清楚。通过将最新的古气候模型与尖端的“生态位建模”方法相结合，我们将首次测试过去6600万年来的气候变化在多大程度上可能促成了这些模式，并预测未来气候驱动的地理变化。通过采取三管齐下的方法（开发新的分歧时间模型，从未充分研究的物种中生成新的序列数据，并评估新的化石校准），我们准备生成第一个全面和准确的现代鸟类生命树的时间尺度图，这是识别产生地球现代鸟类生物多样性的模式和过程的基本步骤。这也将揭示地球历史上的重大事件，如杀死巨型恐龙的大规模灭绝事件，如何塑造鸟类进化。这个跨学科的项目将对教学，博物馆展览，数字馆藏建设和媒体产生影响，并将涉及许多早期的职业科学家。该项目的新数据（例如，关键现代鸟类和新化石的CT扫描）将提供一个数字遗产，供所有人免费使用。这些数据将促进未来对鸟类进化的无数研究，并与伴随出版物的媒体曝光相结合，将教育年轻人和老年人关于进化和古生物学。为此，该项目的视觉数据将被纳入塞奇威克地球科学博物馆的展览中，让公众能够操纵数字和物理标本。

项目成果

Forty new specimens of Ichthyornis provide unprecedented insight into the postcranial morphology of crownward stem group birds.

• DOI: 10.7717/peerj.13919
• 发表时间: 2022
• 期刊: PEERJ
• 影响因子: 2.7
• 作者: Benito, Juan;Chen, Albert;Wilson, Laura E.;Bhullar, Bhart-Anjan S.;Burnham, David;Field, Daniel J.
• 通讯作者: Field, Daniel J.

Preliminary paleoecological insights from the Pliocene avifauna of Kanapoi, Kenya: Implications for the ecology of Australopithecus anamensis

• DOI: 10.1016/j.jhevol.2017.08.007
• 发表时间: 2020-03-01
• 期刊: JOURNAL OF HUMAN EVOLUTION
• 影响因子: 3.2
• 作者: Field, Daniel J.

Timing the extant avian radiation: The rise of modern birds, and the importance of modeling molecular rate variation

• DOI: 10.7287/peerj.preprints.27521v1
• 发表时间: 2019-02
• 作者: D. Field;Jacob S. Berv;Allison Y. Hsiang;R. Lanfear;Michael J. Landis;A. Dornburg

Macroevolutionary dynamics of dentition in Mesozoic birds reveal no long-term selection towards tooth loss.

• DOI: 10.1016/j.isci.2021.102243
• 发表时间: 2021-03-19
• 期刊: iScience
• 影响因子: 5.8
• 作者: Brocklehurst N;Field DJ
• 通讯作者: Field DJ

Total-Evidence Framework Reveals Complex Morphological Evolution in Nightbirds (Strisores)

• DOI: 10.3390/d11090143
• 发表时间: 2019-09-01
• 期刊: DIVERSITY-BASEL
• 影响因子: 2.4
• 作者: Chen, Albert;White, Noor D.;Field, Daniel J.
• 通讯作者: Field, Daniel J.