ArticleProceedings. Biological sciences2021
The patterns and modes of the evolution of disparity in Mesozoic birds.
Article in Proceedings. Biological sciences, 2021. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 12 papers.
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12 citing papers in PubMed.
- Critical innovations in the assembly of the modern flight apparatus in Early Cretaceous birds.iScience · 2026Article
- Great expectations: altricial developmental strategies are associated with more flexible evolution of limb skeleton proportions in birds.Proceedings. Biological sciences · 2025Article
- Enlargement of sternum traits facilitated the evolution of powered flight in birds.Nature ecology & evolution · 2025Article
- Article
- Low morphological disparity and decelerated rate of limb size evolution close to the origin of birds.Nature ecology & evolution · 2023Article
- Quantitative investigation of pengornithid enantiornithine diet reveals macrocarnivorous ecology evolved in birds by Early Cretaceous.iScience · 2023Article
- Divergent vertebral formulae shape the evolution of axial complexity in mammals.Nature ecology & evolution · 2023Article
- A new confuciusornithid bird with a secondary epiphyseal ossification reveals phylogenetic changes in confuciusornithid flight mode.Communications biology · 2022Article
- Forty new specimens ofPeerJ · 2022Article
- Spatiotemporal evolution of the Jehol Biota: Responses to the North China craton destruction in the Early Cretaceous.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2021Article
- Cretaceous bird with dinosaur skull sheds light on avian cranial evolution.Nature communications · 2021Article
- The patterns and modes of the evolution of disparity in Mesozoic birds.Proceedings. Biological sciences · 2021Article
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4 authors.
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Abstract
The origin of birds from non-avian theropod dinosaurs is one of the greatest transitions in evolution. Shortly after diverging from other theropods in the Late Jurassic, Mesozoic birds diversified into two major clades-the Enantiornithes and Ornithuromorpha-acquiring many features previously considered unique to the crown group along the way. Here, we present a comparative phylogenetic study of the patterns and modes of Mesozoic bird skeletal morphology and limb proportions. Our results show that the major Mesozoic avian groups are distinctive in discrete character space, but constrained in a morphospace defined by limb proportions. The Enantiornithines, despite being the most speciose group of Mesozoic birds, are much less morphologically disparate than their sister clade, the Ornithuromorpha-the clade that gave rise to living birds, showing disparity and diversity were decoupled in avian history. This relatively low disparity suggests that diversification of enantiornithines was characterized in exhausting fine morphologies, whereas ornithuromorphs continuously explored a broader array of morphologies and ecological opportunities. We suggest this clade-specific evolutionary versatility contributed to their sole survival of the end-Cretaceous mass extinction.
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