New avian 'tree of life' study published

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Michael Szabo
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New avian 'tree of life' study published

Postby Michael Szabo » Tue Apr 02, 2024 1:48 pm

"The largest-ever study of bird genomes has produced a remarkably clear picture of the bird family tree. Published in the journal Nature today, the study shows that most of the modern groups of birds first appeared within 5 million years after the extinction of the dinosaurs."

Summary article: https://theconversation.com/after-10-ye ... jqgKPqkRNg

Link to paper: https://theconversation.com/after-10-ye ... jqgKPqkRNg
My new book 'Wild Wellington Nga Taonga Taiao' can be ordered online here:
https://tepapastore.co.nz/products/wild ... o-o-te-ika
paradoxdinokipi
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Re: New avian 'tree of life' study published

Postby paradoxdinokipi » Tue Apr 02, 2024 2:57 pm

There was another interesting paper from around a month ago which also proposed a different phylogeny, though the biggest difference it had was proposing that birds diversified during the Cretaceous (with Angiosperms, similar to mammals), rather than all the other ones (including this one), they did have reasons but I don't believe I'm well versed enough to actually comment on them, but it didn't *seem* to touch on the implications of that high of a neornithean diversity surviving whilst the all the other non-neornithean birds went extinct, and it suggested that core Aequornithes only diverged after the PETM yet we have penguin fossils which date earlier than that.
Here's what I believe is the full paper : https://www.pnas.org/doi/full/10.1073/pnas.2319696121
my inat: https://www.inaturalist.org/people/4733175 & ebird account is linked in that profile :)

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