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Tinamous and Moa Flock Together (1 Viewer)

ntbirdman

Well-known member
I guess this isn't really surprising news anymore, but another study placing the tinamou within Ratites:

Matthew J. Phillips , Gillian C. Gibb , Elizabeth A. Crimp , and David Penny. Tinamous and Moa Flock Together: Mitochondrial Genome Sequence Analysis Reveals Independent Losses of Flight among Ratites. Systematic Biology 59: 90-107.

http://sysbio.oxfordjournals.org.proxy.library.cornell.edu/cgi/content/full/59/1/90
Abstract:
http://sysbio.oxfordjournals.org.proxy.library.cornell.edu/cgi/content/abstract/59/1/90
 
Lithornidae are flying Palaeognaths that have a pretty decent fossil record, from I believe the Eocene of Europe and North America. Not sure how they tie into modern paleognaths though.
 
Palaeognathae

Johnston 2011. New morphological evidence supports congruent phylogenies and Gondwana vicariance for palaeognathous birds. Zool J Linn Soc: in press. [abstract]
 
Allentoft, M. E. & N. J. Rawlence, 2012. Moa’s Ark or volant ghosts of Gondwana? Insights from nineteen years of ancient DNA research on the extinct moa (Aves: Dinornithiformes) of New Zealand. Ann. Anat. 194: 36-51.

Abstract
The moa (Aves: Dinornithiformes) of New Zealand represent one of the extinct iconic taxa that define the field of ancient DNA (aDNA), and after almost two decades of genetic scrutiny of bones, feathers, coprolites, mummified tissue, eggshell, and sediments, our knowledge of these prehistoric giants has increased significantly. Thanks to molecular and morphological-based research, the insights that have been obtained into moa phylogenetics, phylogeography, and palaeobiology exceeds that of any other extinct taxon. This review documents the strengths of applying a multidisciplinary approach when studying extinct taxa but also shows that cross-disciplinary controversies still remain at the most fundamental levels, with highly conflicting interpretations derived from aDNA and morphology. Moa species diversity, for example, is still heavily debated, as well as their relationship with other ratites and the mode of radiation. In addition to increasing our knowledge on a lineage of extinct birds, further insights into these aspects can clarify some of the basal splits in avian evolution, and the evolutionary implications of the breakup of the prehistoric supercontinent Gondwana. Did a flightless moa ancestor drift away on proto New Zealand (Moa's Ark) or did a volant ancestor arrive by flight? Here we provide an overview of 19 years of aDNA research on moa, critically assess the attempts and controversies in placing the moa lineage among palaeognath birds, and discuss the factors that facilitated the extensive radiation of moa. Finally, we identify the most obvious gaps in the current knowledge to address the future potential research areas in moa genetics.


Also this paper from 2009.
 
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Trevor H. Worthy, Suzanne J. Hand & Michael Archer. Phylogenetic relationships of the Australian Oligo-Miocene ratite Emuarius gidju Casuariidae. Integrative Zoology, Accepted article.
Abstract
 
Scott V. Edwards. Convergent regulatory evolution and the origin of flightlessness in palaeognathous birds. Society for Molecular Biology and Evolution Conference 2016.

Abstract:

A major question in evolutionary biology, one posed in the mid-1970s by Allan Wilson, is whether genic or regulatory evolution underlies the diversity of phenotypes observed in nature. An additional question that Allan Wilson asked was whether convergent phenotypes are driven by convergence at the level of the genome. We have approached these questions by using comparative genomics to understand the genomic basis of flightlessness in palaeognathous birds, which include the flightless ratites (emu, ostrich, kiwi, etc) and the volant tinamous of the New World. In contrast to the early trees produced by Allan Wilson and others, recent phylogenetic work suggests that tinamous are embedded within the ratite radiation and that flight was likely lost multiple times within the group. We have produced 10 new high-quality palaoengath genomes and aligned these to 32 additional genomes from birds and non-avian reptiles in an easily searchable genome browser. We called ~1.5 million conserved non-exonic elements (CNEEs) in these genomes, of which ~284,000 were greater than 50 bp, and identified those that have undergone relaxation or acceleration in individual ratite lineages or convergently in multiple ratite lineages. We identified ~15,000 CNEEs undergoing acceleration at least one ratite lineage, a CNEE subset that is enriched for elements that have arisen since the avian ancestor, as well as significant numbers of CNEEs and coding regions that have undergone acceleration or adaptive evolution in multiple ratite lineages. We find that the genes nearest to convergently accelerating CNEEs are enriched for roles in development and that many of these show intriguing patterns of expression in developing chickens. Current work is focused on functionally examining the role of specific CNEEs in driving gene expression in chickens, emus and rheas. Overall our results suggest a strong role for non-coding regulatory evolution in the origin of flightlessness in palaeognathous birds.
 
Cloutier, Sackton, Grayson, Edwards, Baker. [2018.] First nuclear genome assembly of an extinct moa species, the little bush moa (Anomalopteryx didiformis). bioRxiv 262816.
[bioRxiv preprint]

Cloutier, Sackton, Grayson, Clamp, Baker, Edwards. [2018.] Whole-genome analyses resolve the phylogeny of flightless birds (Palaeognathae) in the presence of an empirical anomaly zone. bioRxiv 262949.
[bioRxiv preprint]

Sackton, Grayson, Cloutier, Hu, Liu, Wheeler, Gardner, Clarke, Baker, Clamp, Edwards. [2018.] Convergent regulatory evolution and the origin of flightlessness in palaeognathous birds. bioRxiv 262584
[bioRxiv preprint]
 
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