ArticleProceedings. Biological sciences2023
Direct quantification of skeletal pneumaticity illuminates ecological drivers of a key avian trait.
Article in Proceedings. Biological sciences, 2023. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 15 papers.
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Who cites it
15 citing papers in PubMed, 22 citations in OpenAlex.
- Adaptation in the Avian Middle Ear-The Columellar Annular Ligament in Aquatic and Diving Birds.Journal of morphology · 2026Article
- Anatomical Atlas and Three-Dimensional Musculoskeletal Model of the Flight Apparatus in the Southern Screamer (Anseriformes:Integrative organismal biology (Oxford, England) · 2026Article
- The living dinosaur: accomplishments and challenges of reconstructing dinosaur physiology.Biology letters · 2025Review
- The influence of soft tissue volume on estimates of skeletal pneumaticity: implications for fossil archosaurs.Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences · 2025Article
- When the lung invades: a review of avian postcranial skeletal pneumaticity.Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences · 2025Review
- Unidirectional airflow, air sacs or the horizontal septum: what does it take to make a bird lung?Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences · 2025Review
- Development of postcranial pneumaticity in the turkey (Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences · 2025Article
- Toward a Comprehensive Anatomical Matrix for Crown Birds: Phylogenetic Insights from the Pectoral Girdle and Forelimb Skeleton.Integrative organismal biology (Oxford, England) · 2025Article
- Variation in air sac morphology and postcranial skeletal pneumatization patterns in the African grey parrot.Journal of anatomy · 2025Article
- Whence the birds: 200 years of dinosaurs, avian antecedents.Biology letters · 2025Review
- Tactile bill-tip organs in seabirds suggest conservation of a deep avian symplesiomorphy.Biology letters · 2024Article
- Comparative Analysis of Morphometric, Densitometric, and Mechanical Properties of Skeletal Locomotor Elements in Three Duck Species (Animals : an open access journal from MDPI · 2024Article
- Small body size is associated with increased evolutionary lability of wing skeleton proportions in birds.Nature communications · 2024Article
- Diving dinosaurs? Caveats on the use of bone compactness and pFDA for inferring lifestyle.PloS one · 2024Article
- Direct quantification of skeletal pneumaticity illuminates ecological drivers of a key avian trait.Proceedings. Biological sciences · 2023Article
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Authors and funding
3 authors at 2 institutions in 1 country.
Funding
Abstract
Skeletal pneumaticity is a key feature of extant avian structure and biology, which first evolved among the non-flying archosaurian ancestors of birds. The widespread presence of air-filled bones across the postcranial skeleton is unique to birds among living vertebrates, but the true extent of skeletal pneumaticity has never been quantitatively investigated-hindering fundamental insights into the evolution of this key avian feature. Here, we use microCT scans of fresh, frozen birds to directly quantify the fraction of humerus volume occupied by air across a phylogenetically diverse taxon sample to test longstanding hypotheses regarding the evolution and function of avian skeletal pneumatization. Among other insights, we document weak positive allometry of internal air volume with humeral size among pneumatized humeri and provide strong support that humeral size, body mass, aquatic diving, and the presence or absence of pneumaticity all have independent effects on cortical bone thickness. Our quantitative evaluation of humeral pneumaticity across extant avian phylogeny sheds new light on the evolution and ontogenetic progression of an important aspect of avian skeletal architecture, and suggests that the last common ancestor of crown birds possessed a highly pneumatized humerus.
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Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.