Neoaves Explained

Neoaves is a clade that consists of all modern birds (Neornithes or Aves) with the exception of Palaeognathae (ratites and kin) and Galloanserae (ducks, chickens and kin).[1] This group is defined in the PhyloCode by George Sangster and colleagues in 2022 as "the most inclusive crown clade containing Passer domesticus, but not Gallus gallus".[2] Almost 95% of the roughly 10,000 known species of extant birds belong to the Neoaves.[3]

The early diversification of the various neoavian groups occurred very rapidly around the Cretaceous–Paleogene extinction event,[4] [5] and attempts to resolve their relationships with each other have resulted initially in much controversy.[6] [7]

Phylogeny

The early diversification of the various neoavian groups occurred very rapidly around the Cretaceous–Paleogene extinction event.[8] As a result of the rapid radiation, attempts to resolve their relationships have produced conflicting results, some quite controversial, especially in the earlier studies.[9] [10] Nevertheless, some recent large phylogenomic studies of Neoaves have led to much progress on defining orders and supraordinal groups within Neoaves. Still, the studies have failed to produce to a consensus on an overall high order topology of these groups.[11] [12] [13] [14] A genomic study of 48 taxa by Jarvis and colleagues in 2014 divided Neoaves into two main clades, Columbea and Passerea, but an analysis of 198 taxa by Prum and colleagues in 2015 recovered different groupings for the earliest split in Neoaves.[11] [12] A reanalysis with an extended dataset by Reddy and colleagues in 2017 suggested this was due to the type of sequence data, with coding sequences favouring the Prum topology.[13] The disagreement on topology even with large phylogenomic studies led Alexander Suh in 2016 to propose a hard polytomy of nine clades as the base of Neoaves.[15] An analysis by Houde and colleagues in 2019 recovered Columbea and a reduced hard polytomy of six clades within Passerea.[16]

Despite other disagreements, these studies do agree on a number of supraordinal groups, which Reddy and colleagues in 2017 dubbed the "magnificent seven", which together with three "orphaned orders" make up Neoaves.[13] Significantly, they both include a large waterbird clade (Aequornithes) and a large landbird clade (Telluraves). The groups defined by Reddy and colleagues (2017) are as follows:

  1. Telluraves (landbirds)
  2. Aequornithes (waterbirds)
  3. Eurypygimorphae (sunbittern, kagu and tropicbirds)
  4. Otidimorphae (turacos, bustards and cuckoos)
  5. Strisores (nightjars, swifts, hummingbirds and allies)
  6. Columbimorphae (mesites, sandgrouse and pigeons)
  7. Mirandornithes (flamingos and grebes)

Comparison of different proposals for neoavian radiation

Detailed cladogram

The following cladogram illustrates the proposed relationships between all neoavian bird clades.

Notes and References

  1. Jarvis. E. D.. Mirarab. S.. Aberer. A. J.. Li. B.. Houde. P.. Li. C.. Ho. S. Y. W.. Faircloth. B. C.. Nabholz. B.. Howard. J. T.. Suh. A.. Weber. C. C.. da Fonseca. R. R.. Li. J.. Zhang. F.. Li. H.. Zhou. L.. Narula. N.. Liu. L.. Ganapathy. G.. Boussau. B.. Bayzid. M. S.. Zavidovych. V.. Subramanian. S.. Gabaldon. T.. Capella-Gutierrez. S.. Huerta-Cepas. J.. Rekepalli. B.. Munch. K.. Schierup. M.. Lindow. B.. Warren. W. C.. Ray. D.. Green. R. E.. Bruford. M. W.. Zhan. X.. Dixon. A.. Li. S.. Li. N.. Huang. Y.. Derryberry. E. P.. Bertelsen. M. F.. Sheldon. F. H.. Brumfield. R. T.. Mello. C. V.. Lovell. P. V.. Wirthlin. M.. Schneider. M. P. C.. Prosdocimi. F.. Samaniego. J. A.. Velazquez. A. M. V.. Alfaro-Nunez. A.. Campos. P. F.. Petersen. B.. Sicheritz-Ponten. T.. Pas. A.. Bailey. T.. Scofield. P.. Bunce. M.. Lambert. D. M.. Zhou. Q.. Perelman. P.. Driskell. A. C.. Shapiro. B.. Xiong. Z.. Zeng. Y.. Liu. S.. Li. Z.. Liu. B.. Wu. K.. Xiao. J.. Yinqi. X.. Zheng. Q.. Zhang. Y.. Yang. H.. Wang. J.. Smeds. L.. Rheindt. F. E.. Braun. M.. Fjeldsa. J.. Orlando. L.. Barker. F. K.. Jonsson. K. A.. Johnson. W.. Koepfli. K.-P.. O'Brien. S.. Haussler. D.. Ryder. O. A.. Rahbek. C.. Willerslev. E.. Graves. G. R.. Glenn. T. C.. McCormack. J.. Burt. D.. Ellegren. H.. Alstrom. P.. Edwards. S. V.. Stamatakis. A.. Mindell. D. P.. 1. Cracraft. J.. Braun. E. L.. Warnow. T.. Jun. W.. Gilbert. M. T. P.. Zhang. G.. Whole-genome analyses resolve early branches in the tree of life of modern birds. Science. 346. 6215. 2014. 1320–1331. 0036-8075. 10.1126/science.1253451. 25504713. 4405904. 2014Sci...346.1320J . free.
  2. Sangster . George . Braun . Edward L. . Johansson . Ulf S. . Kimball . Rebecca T. . Mayr . Gerald . Suh . Alexander . 2022-01-01 . Phylogenetic definitions for 25 higher-level clade names of birds . Avian Research . 13 . 100027 . 10.1016/j.avrs.2022.100027 . 2053-7166. free . 2022AvRes..1300027S .
  3. Ericson . Per G.P. . 2006 . Diversification of Neoaves: integration of molecular sequence data and fossils . . 2 . 4 . 543–547 . 10.1098/rsbl.2006.0523 . 17148284 . Anderson . CL . Britton . T . Elzanowski . A . Johansson . US . Källersjö . M . Ohlson . JI . Parsons . TJ . Zuccon . D . 1834003 . G. . Mayr . 1 . 2019-08-29 . https://web.archive.org/web/20090325235703/http://www.senckenberg.de/files/content/forschung/abteilung/terrzool/ornithologie/neoaves.pdf . 2009-03-25 . dead .
  4. McCormack . J.E. . etal . 2013 . A phylogeny of birds based on over 1,500 loci collected by target enrichment and high-throughput sequencing . PLOS ONE . 8 . 1. e54848 . 10.1371/journal.pone.0054848 . free . 23382987 . 2013PLoSO...854848M . 3558522 . 1210.1604 .
  5. Claramunt . S. . Cracraft . J. . A new time tree reveals Earth history's imprint on the evolution of modern birds . Sci Adv . 2015 . 1 . 11 . e1501005 . 10.1126/sciadv.1501005 . 4730849 . 26824065. 2015SciA....1E1005C .
  6. Mayr . G . 2011 . Metaves, Mirandornithes, Strisores and other novelties - a critical review of the higher-level phylogeny of neornithine birds . J Zool Syst Evol Res . 49 . 58–76 . 10.1111/j.1439-0469.2010.00586.x . free .
  7. Matzke, A. et al. (2012) Retroposon insertion patterns of neoavian birds: strong evidence for an extensive incomplete lineage sorting era Mol. Biol. Evol.
  8. Claramunt . S. . Cracraft . J. . A new time tree reveals Earth history's imprint on the evolution of modern birds . Sci Adv . 2015 . 1 . 11 . e1501005 . 10.1126/sciadv.1501005 . 4730849 . 26824065. 2015SciA....1E1005C .
  9. Mayr . G . 2011 . Metaves, Mirandornithes, Strisores and other novelties - a critical review of the higher-level phylogeny of neornithine birds . J Zool Syst Evol Res . 49 . 58–76 . 10.1111/j.1439-0469.2010.00586.x . free .
  10. Matzke, A. et al. (2012) "Retroposon insertion patterns of neoavian birds: strong evidence for an extensive incomplete lineage sorting era" Mol. Biol. Evol.
  11. Jarvis . E.D. . etal . 2014 . Whole-genome analyses resolve early branches in the tree of life of modern birds . Science . 346 . 6215. 1320–1331 . 10.1126/science.1253451 . 25504713 . 4405904 . 2014Sci...346.1320J.
  12. Prum. Richard O.. Berv. Jacob S.. Dornburg. Alex. Field. Daniel J.. Townsend. Jeffrey P.. Lemmon. Emily Moriarty. Lemmon. Alan R.. A comprehensive phylogeny of birds (Aves) using targeted next-generation DNA sequencing . Nature. 526. 7574. 2015. 569–573. 0028-0836. 10.1038/nature15697. 26444237. 2015Natur.526..569P . 205246158.
  13. Reddy. Sushma. Kimball. Rebecca T.. Pandey. Akanksha. Hosner. Peter A.. Braun. Michael J.. Hackett. Shannon J.. Han. Kin-Lan. Harshman. John. Huddleston. Christopher J.. Kingston. Sarah. Marks. Ben D.. Miglia. Kathleen J.. Moore. William S.. Sheldon. Frederick H.. Witt. Christopher C.. Yuri. Tamaki. Braun. Edward L.. Why Do Phylogenomic Data Sets Yield Conflicting Trees? Data Type Influences the Avian Tree of Life more than Taxon Sampling. Systematic Biology. 66. 5. 2017. 857–879. 1063-5157. 10.1093/sysbio/syx041. 28369655. free.
  14. Book: Braun. Edward L.. Avian Genomics in Ecology and Evolution. Cracraft. Joel. Houde. Peter. Resolving the Avian Tree of Life from Top to Bottom: The Promise and Potential Boundaries of the Phylogenomic Era. 2019. 151–210. 10.1007/978-3-030-16477-5_6. 978-3-030-16476-8. 198399272 .
  15. Suh. Alexander. The phylogenomic forest of bird trees contains a hard polytomy at the root of Neoaves. Zoologica Scripta. 45. 2016. 50–62. 0300-3256. 10.1111/zsc.12213. free.
  16. Houde. Peter. Braun. Edward L.. Narula. Nitish. Minjares. Uriel. Mirarab. Siavash. Phylogenetic Signal of Indels and the Neoavian Radiation. Diversity. 11. 7. 2019. 108. 1424-2818. 10.3390/d11070108. free.

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