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Dating the diversification of the major lineages of Passeriformes (Aves)

BACKGROUND: The avian Order Passeriformes is an enormously species-rich group, which comprises almost 60% of all living bird species. This diverse order is believed to have originated before the break-up of Gondwana in the late Cretaceous. However, previous molecular dating studies have relied heavi...

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Autores principales: Ericson, Per GP, Klopfstein, Seraina, Irestedt, Martin, Nguyen, Jacqueline MT, Nylander, Johan AA
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: BioMed Central 2014
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3917694/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24422673
http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/1471-2148-14-8
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author Ericson, Per GP
Klopfstein, Seraina
Irestedt, Martin
Nguyen, Jacqueline MT
Nylander, Johan AA
author_facet Ericson, Per GP
Klopfstein, Seraina
Irestedt, Martin
Nguyen, Jacqueline MT
Nylander, Johan AA
author_sort Ericson, Per GP
collection PubMed
description BACKGROUND: The avian Order Passeriformes is an enormously species-rich group, which comprises almost 60% of all living bird species. This diverse order is believed to have originated before the break-up of Gondwana in the late Cretaceous. However, previous molecular dating studies have relied heavily on the geological split between New Zealand and Antarctica, assumed to have occurred 85–82 Mya, for calibrating the molecular clock and might thus be circular in their argument. RESULTS: This study provides a time-scale for the evolution of the major clades of passerines using seven nuclear markers, five taxonomically well-determined passerine fossils, and an updated interpretation of the New Zealand split from Antarctica 85–52 Mya in a Bayesian relaxed-clock approach. We also assess how different interpretations of the New Zealand–Antarctica vicariance event influence our age estimates. Our results suggest that the diversification of Passeriformes began in the late Cretaceous or early Cenozoic. Removing the root calibration for the New Zealand–Antarctica vicariance event (85–52 Mya) dramatically increases the 95% credibility intervals and leads to unrealistically old age estimates. We assess the individual characteristics of the seven nuclear genes analyzed in our study. Our analyses provide estimates of divergence times for the major groups of passerines, which can be used as secondary calibration points in future molecular studies. CONCLUSIONS: Our analysis takes recent paleontological and geological findings into account and provides the best estimate of the passerine evolutionary time-scale currently available. This time-scale provides a temporal framework for further biogeographical, ecological, and co-evolutionary studies of the largest bird radiation, and adds to the growing support for a Cretaceous origin of Passeriformes.
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spelling pubmed-39176942014-02-08 Dating the diversification of the major lineages of Passeriformes (Aves) Ericson, Per GP Klopfstein, Seraina Irestedt, Martin Nguyen, Jacqueline MT Nylander, Johan AA BMC Evol Biol Research Article BACKGROUND: The avian Order Passeriformes is an enormously species-rich group, which comprises almost 60% of all living bird species. This diverse order is believed to have originated before the break-up of Gondwana in the late Cretaceous. However, previous molecular dating studies have relied heavily on the geological split between New Zealand and Antarctica, assumed to have occurred 85–82 Mya, for calibrating the molecular clock and might thus be circular in their argument. RESULTS: This study provides a time-scale for the evolution of the major clades of passerines using seven nuclear markers, five taxonomically well-determined passerine fossils, and an updated interpretation of the New Zealand split from Antarctica 85–52 Mya in a Bayesian relaxed-clock approach. We also assess how different interpretations of the New Zealand–Antarctica vicariance event influence our age estimates. Our results suggest that the diversification of Passeriformes began in the late Cretaceous or early Cenozoic. Removing the root calibration for the New Zealand–Antarctica vicariance event (85–52 Mya) dramatically increases the 95% credibility intervals and leads to unrealistically old age estimates. We assess the individual characteristics of the seven nuclear genes analyzed in our study. Our analyses provide estimates of divergence times for the major groups of passerines, which can be used as secondary calibration points in future molecular studies. CONCLUSIONS: Our analysis takes recent paleontological and geological findings into account and provides the best estimate of the passerine evolutionary time-scale currently available. This time-scale provides a temporal framework for further biogeographical, ecological, and co-evolutionary studies of the largest bird radiation, and adds to the growing support for a Cretaceous origin of Passeriformes. BioMed Central 2014-01-15 /pmc/articles/PMC3917694/ /pubmed/24422673 http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/1471-2148-14-8 Text en Copyright © 2014 Ericson et al.; licensee BioMed Central Ltd. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0 This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
spellingShingle Research Article
Ericson, Per GP
Klopfstein, Seraina
Irestedt, Martin
Nguyen, Jacqueline MT
Nylander, Johan AA
Dating the diversification of the major lineages of Passeriformes (Aves)
title Dating the diversification of the major lineages of Passeriformes (Aves)
title_full Dating the diversification of the major lineages of Passeriformes (Aves)
title_fullStr Dating the diversification of the major lineages of Passeriformes (Aves)
title_full_unstemmed Dating the diversification of the major lineages of Passeriformes (Aves)
title_short Dating the diversification of the major lineages of Passeriformes (Aves)
title_sort dating the diversification of the major lineages of passeriformes (aves)
topic Research Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3917694/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24422673
http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/1471-2148-14-8
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