Journal
CURRENT BIOLOGY
Volume 25, Issue 19, Pages R888-R898Publisher
CELL PRESS
DOI: 10.1016/j.cub.2015.08.003
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Funding
- NSF [DEB 1110357]
- Marie Curie Career Integration Grant [EC 630652]
- NSF GRF, Columbia University
- American Museum of Natural History
- HHMI
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Birds are one of the most recognizable and diverse groups of modern vertebrates. Over the past two decades, a wealth of new fossil discoveries and phylogenetic and macroevolutionary studies has transformed our understanding of how birds originated and became so successful. Birds evolved from theropod dinosaurs during the Jurassic (around 165-150 million years ago) and their classic small, lightweight, feathered, and winged body plan was pieced together gradually over tens of millions of years of evolution rather than in one burst of innovation. Early birds diversified throughout the Jurassic and Cretaceous, becoming capable fliers with supercharged growth rates, but were decimated at the end-Cretaceous extinction alongside their close dinosaurian relatives. After the mass extinction, modern birds (members of the avian crown group) explosively diversified, culminating in more than 10,000 species distributed worldwide today.
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