A new study of the evolution of birds shows that as their skeletons become more complex, they also decrease in diversity, with fewer species as they become more specialized in their niches. The findings, published in Nature Communications, show a correlation between skeleton complexity and bird diversity for the first time, and help biologists better understand why biodiversity varies across the birds.
Bivariate relationships between the relative differentiation of limb segments in pairwise comparisons. Values indicated are phylogenetic residuals from a PGLS model of isometrically-transformed mean bone lengths against estimates of species body masses. In all cases, the forelimb is represented in blue, and the hindlimb in orange.the zeugopod and stylopod. “Hind”=hindlimb, “Fore”=forelimb.
Researchers at the Milner Centre for Evolution at the University of Bath looked at 983 species across all major groups of living birds and measured the complexity of their skeletons by comparing the bones in their fore limbs and hind limbs . They found that less complex birds—those with a smaller differences between their fore and hind limbs—had moreFor example, birds such as pigeons, gulls and songbirds have low skeletal complexity but a high diversity of species living in varied habitats across the world.
At the other end of the spectrum, flamingos, and ostriches have short wings in comparison to their legs, and so have more complex limb skeletons. Groups with more complex skeletons may occupy smaller niches and are less able to subdivide those niche spaces in order to produceWhile evolution can produce forms with lower complexity, these findings suggest that birds with more complex skeletons have become more specialized over time and so more developmentally entrenched.
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