After a catastrophic strike of a meteorite 65 million years ago, which became fateful for most dinosaurs, birds, which are technically dinosaurs, not only survived, but also flourished. Scientists for centuries tried to systematize about 10 thousand species of birds in a single family tree to understand how the last surviving dinosaurs filled the heaven. Inexpensive DNA sequencing was supposed to simplify this process, as happened with many other species. However, the birds were not as simple as it was supposed to.
In two new research work (1, 2), Scientists revealed that another event that occurred 65 million years ago misled them regarding the true history of the bird family. They found that the section of one chromosome of millions of years was “frozen in time” and refused to mix with the surrounding DNA, as required by development. This section, which is only two percent of the bird genome, convinced scientists that most birds can be divided into two main categories, considering flamingo and pigeons with evolutionary cousins. However, a more accurate family tree taking into account the genome section determines the four main groups and indicates that flamingo and pigeons have a more distant family relationship.
Breakthrough in the study of bird evolution
Edward Brown, Doctor of Philosophy, Senior Author of the study published in the journal ProChedings of the National Academy of Sciences and a biology professor at Florida University, says: “My laboratory was engaged in this problem of bird evolution than I would like to admit. We and we and we and we and we They did not suspect that there would be a large site in the genome that would behave unusual. We seemed to stumble upon it.” Brown headed the international group of researchers together with Siavash Miraymp, a professor of computer engineering at the University of California in San Diego to publish their evidence that this “sticky” DNA section has confused the true history of bird evolution.
Studies are part of the B10K bird genomic project, headed by GOZZA ZHAHAN from the University of Zhezian, Eric Jarvis from the University of Rockefeller and Tom Gilbert from the Copenhagen University.
Genetic abnormalities and evolutionary discoveries
Ten years ago, Brown and his colleagues gathered a family tree for the Neoaves group, which includes most species of birds.