Publication Date:
2014-05-24
Description:
The evolution of the ratite birds has been widely attributed to vicariant speciation, driven by the Cretaceous breakup of the supercontinent Gondwana. The early isolation of Africa and Madagascar implies that the ostrich and extinct Madagascan elephant birds (Aepyornithidae) should be the oldest ratite lineages. We sequenced the mitochondrial genomes of two elephant birds and performed phylogenetic analyses, which revealed that these birds are the closest relatives of the New Zealand kiwi and are distant from the basal ratite lineage of ostriches. This unexpected result strongly contradicts continental vicariance and instead supports flighted dispersal in all major ratite lineages. We suggest that convergence toward gigantism and flightlessness was facilitated by early Tertiary expansion into the diurnal herbivory niche after the extinction of the dinosaurs.〈br /〉〈span class="detail_caption"〉Notes: 〈/span〉Mitchell, Kieren J -- Llamas, Bastien -- Soubrier, Julien -- Rawlence, Nicolas J -- Worthy, Trevor H -- Wood, Jamie -- Lee, Michael S Y -- Cooper, Alan -- New York, N.Y. -- Science. 2014 May 23;344(6186):898-900. doi: 10.1126/science.1251981.〈br /〉〈span class="detail_caption"〉Author address: 〈/span〉Australian Centre for Ancient DNA, School of Earth and Environmental Sciences, University of Adelaide, North Terrace Campus, South Australia 5005, Australia. ; School of Biological Sciences, Flinders University, South Australia 5001, Australia. ; Landcare Research, Post Office Box 40, Lincoln 7640, New Zealand. ; Australian Centre for Ancient DNA, School of Earth and Environmental Sciences, University of Adelaide, North Terrace Campus, South Australia 5005, Australia. South Australian Museum, North Terrace, South Australia 5000, Australia. ; Australian Centre for Ancient DNA, School of Earth and Environmental Sciences, University of Adelaide, North Terrace Campus, South Australia 5005, Australia. alan.cooper@adelaide.edu.au.〈br /〉〈span class="detail_caption"〉Record origin:〈/span〉 〈a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24855267" target="_blank"〉PubMed〈/a〉
Keywords:
Animals
;
Base Sequence
;
*Biological Evolution
;
DNA/*genetics
;
Flight, Animal
;
Fossils
;
Molecular Sequence Data
;
New Zealand
;
Palaeognathae/*classification/genetics
;
Phylogeny
;
Struthioniformes/*classification/genetics
Print ISSN:
0036-8075
Electronic ISSN:
1095-9203
Topics:
Biology
,
Chemistry and Pharmacology
,
Computer Science
,
Medicine
,
Natural Sciences in General
,
Physics
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