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Cladogenesis and morphological diversification in passerine birds

Nature volume 430, pages 338–341 (2004)Cite this article

Abstract

Morphological diversity tends to increase within evolving lineages over time1,2, but the relative roles of gradual evolutionary change (anagenesis)3 and abrupt shifts associated with speciation events (cladogenesis, or ‘punctuated equilibrium’)4 have not been resolved for most groups of organisms5. However, these two modes of evolution can be distinguished by the fact that morphological variance increases in proportion to time under anagenesis6, and in proportion to the logarithm of the number of species under cladogenesis7. Although species and time are themselves correlated, multiple regression analysis provides a statistical framework for partitioning their relative contributions. In this study, I use multiple regressions to evaluate the effects of time and species number on morphological diversity within clades of passerine birds. The results show clearly that number of species exerts a strong influence on morphological variance independent of time, but that time has no unique effect. Thus, morphological evolution in birds seems to be associated with cladogenesis. How lineage splitting promotes morphological diversification poses an important challenge to ecologists and evolutionary biologists.

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Figure 1: The relationship between morphological variance and number of species for 95 passerine clades.
Figure 2: Distribution of morphological variance on PC axes 1–4.

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Acknowledgements

I thank M. Foote, T. Givnish and S. S. Renner for constructive comments. For access to specimens, I am grateful to curators and collection managers at the Academy of Natural Sciences in Philadelphia, the US National museum, the American Museum of Natural History, the Field Museum in Chicago, the Bavarian State Collections in Munich, the Senckenberg Museum in Frankfurt and the Museum des Sciences Naturelles in Brussels. This work was supported in part by research funds available to Curators’ Professors at the University of Missouri.

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  1. Department of Biology, University of Missouri-St Louis, 8001 Natural Bridge Road, St Louis, Missouri, 63121-4499, USA

    Robert E. Ricklefs

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  1. Robert E. Ricklefs
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Correspondence to Robert E. Ricklefs.

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The authors declare that they have no competing financial interests.

Supplementary information

Supplementary Table 1

The 106 suprageneric clades of passerine birds used in analyses of morphological diversification as a function of time and species number. (DOC 254 kb)

Supplementary Table 2

List of clades having less than 10 species and used in an analysis of the effects of continental versus non-continental distribution and degree of sympatry on morphological variance. (DOC 56 kb)

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Ricklefs, R. Cladogenesis and morphological diversification in passerine birds. Nature 430, 338–341 (2004). https://doi.org/10.1038/nature02700

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