Institute of Experimental Pathology (ZMBE), University of Münster, Von-Esmarch-Strasse 56, D-48149 Münster, Germany.
Nat Commun. 2011 Aug 23;2:443. doi: 10.1038/ncomms1448.
The relationships of passerines (such as the well-studied zebra finch) with non-passerine birds is one of the great enigmas of avian phylogenetic research, because decades of extensive morphological and molecular studies yielded highly inconsistent results between and within data sets. Here we show the first application of the virtually homoplasy-free retroposon insertions to this controversy. Our study examined ~200,000 retroposon-containing loci from various avian genomes and retrieved 51 markers resolving early bird phylogeny. Among these, we obtained statistically significant evidence that parrots are the closest and falcons the second-closest relatives of passerines, together constituting the Psittacopasserae and the Eufalconimorphae, respectively. Our new and robust phylogenetic framework has substantial implications for the interpretation of various conclusions drawn from passerines as model organisms. This includes insights of relevance to human neuroscience, as vocal learning (that is, birdsong) probably evolved in the psittacopasseran ancestor, >30 million years earlier than previously assumed.
雀形目鸟类（如研究较为透彻的斑马雀）与非雀形目鸟类之间的关系是鸟类系统发育研究中的一大未解之谜，因为几十年来广泛的形态学和分子研究在数据集之间和内部产生了高度不一致的结果。在这里，我们首次将几乎无同功现象的反转录转座子插入应用于该争议。我们的研究检查了来自各种鸟类基因组的约 200,000 个含有反转录转座子的基因座，并从 51 个标记中检索到了解决早期鸟类系统发育的信息。在这些标记中，我们获得了统计学上显著的证据，表明鹦鹉是雀形目鸟类最接近的亲戚，而隼类是第二接近的亲戚，它们共同构成了 Psittacopasserae 和 Eufalconimorphae。我们的新的、稳健的系统发育框架对从雀形目鸟类作为模式生物得出的各种结论的解释具有重要意义。这包括对人类神经科学的重要见解，因为发声学习（即鸟鸣）可能是在 3000 多万年前在 Psittacopasseran 祖先中进化而来的，比之前的假设要早得多。
