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Phylogenetic affinities of fossil passerines (1 Viewer)

albertonykus

Well-known member
Lowi-Merri, T.M., M. Gjevori, Z.M. Bochenski, K. Wertz, and S. Claramunt (2024)
Total-evidence dating and the phylogenetic affinities of early fossil passerines
Journal of Systematic Palaeontology 22: 2356086
doi: 10.1080/14772019.2024.2356086

Passeriformes is the most diverse and globally widespread order of living birds. However, little work has been done on the phylogenetic relationships within their fossil record. Recent advances in total-evidence phylogenetic methods have improved topological and age estimation by using morphological, molecular and temporal data. This provides the opportunity to investigate the phylogenetic affinities of five recently described passerines from the early Oligocene of Europe, including some of the most complete and oldest passerine fossils described to date. We compare maximum parsimony, non-clock Bayesian inference, and total-evidence tip-dating Bayesian analysis to estimate relationships and divergence times of the fossil passerines. We find Wieslochia weissi, Crosnoornis nargizia and NT-LBR-0014 form a clade within Tyranni (suboscines) either in the stem or within Old-World suboscines (Eurylaimides). Jamna szybiaki is recovered as the sister lineage of crown Passeriformes. We confirmed the oscine affinities of Resoviaornis jamrozi. Its precise position within Passeri remains ambiguous, but affinities within Corvides or Passerides may be more likely considering the biogeographic history of the group. We emphasize the importance of an informative tree age prior in total-evidence dating analyses and appeal for the further development of models for phylogenetic inference using morphology.
 
Figure 1. Fossil birds analysed in this study. A, Wieslochia weissi slab SMNK–PAL.3980 (credit to G. Mayr). B, Jamna szybiaki
holotype, MSMD Av JAM-6. C, Resoviaornis jamrozi holotype slabs MSMD Av WR-9aþb. D, unnamed passerine specimen, NTLBR-
014 (credit to N. Tourment). E, Crosnoornis nargizia MSFK RR 01/2013aþb. Scale bars ¼ 10mm.
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Figure 2. Fifty percent majority rule consensus tree of 20 most parsimonious trees from the parsimony analysis of extant and fossil
(†) Passeriformes (with Psittaciformes and Falconiformes as outgroup) based on 118 morphological and 6220 molecular characters. Five focal fossil taxa from the Oligocene of Europe are highlighted in bold. Alternative positions are shown for Resoviaornis jamrozi (red dashed lines). Parsimony bootstrap support values above 50% are shown at nodes.
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Figur 3. Fifty percent majority rule consensus tree with mean node ages from a total-evidence dating analysis of extant and fossil
(†) Passeriformes. The analysis was based on 118 morphological and 6220 molecular characters, and included an empirical prior on
the tree age (see Fig. 3). Five focal fossil taxa from the Oligocene of Europe are highlighted in bold. Blue bars show node age 95%
highest posterior ranges. Bayesian clade posterior probability is indicated at the nodes.
1718869764522.png

Fred
 

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