Department of Evolutionary and Environmental Biology & Institute of Evolution, University of Haifa, 3498838, Haifa, Israel.
School of Biosciences, University of Sheffield, Sheffield, UK.
Sci Rep. 2021 Nov 3;11(1):21573. doi: 10.1038/s41598-021-00964-6.
The evolutionary history of many organisms is characterized by major changes in morphology and distribution. Specifically, alterations of body mass and geographic distribution may profoundly influence organismal life-history traits. Here, we reconstructed the evolutionary history of flight-feather molt strategy using data from 1,808 Neornithes species. Our analysis suggests that the ancestral molt strategy of first-year birds was partial or entirely absent, and that complete wing flight-feather molt in first-year birds first evolved in the late Eocene and Oligocene (25-40 Ma), at least 30 Myr after birds first evolved. Complete flight-feather molt occurred mainly at equatorial latitudes and in relatively low body mass species, following a diversification of body mass within the lineage. We conclude that both body mass and geographic distribution shaped the evolution of molt strategies and propose that the evolutionary transition towards complete juvenile molt in the Neornithes is a novel, relatively late adaptation.
许多生物的进化历史以形态和分布的重大变化为特征。具体来说，体重和地理分布的改变可能会深刻影响生物的生活史特征。在这里，我们利用 1808 种新鸟类的数据重建了飞行羽毛换羽策略的进化历史。我们的分析表明，雏鸟的原始换羽策略是部分或完全缺失的，而雏鸟的完全翅膀飞行羽毛换羽首先在晚始新世和渐新世（25-40Ma）进化，至少在鸟类首次进化 3000 万年后。完全的飞行羽毛换羽主要发生在赤道纬度和相对低体重的物种中，这是在该谱系中体重多样化之后发生的。我们的结论是，体重和地理分布共同塑造了换羽策略的进化，并提出新鸟类中完全的幼鸟换羽的进化过渡是一种新颖的、相对较晚的适应。
