Cretaceous origins of the vibrotactile bill-tip organ in birds.
Ontology highlight
ABSTRACT:
SUBMITTER: du Toit CJ
PROVIDER: S-EPMC7739938 | biostudies-literature |
REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature
Similar Datasets
Project description:Ibises (order: Pelecaniformes, family: Threskiornithidae) are probe-foraging birds that use 'remote-touch' to locate prey items hidden in opaque substrates. This sensory capability allows them to locate their prey using high-frequency vibrations in the substrate in the absence of other sensory cues. Remote-touch is facilitated by a specialised bill-tip organ, comprising high densities of mechanoreceptors (Herbst corpuscles) embedded in numerous foramina in the beak bones. Each foramen and its associated Herbst corpuscles make up a sensory unit, called a 'sensory pit'. These sensory pits are densely clustered in the distal portion of the beak. Previous research has indicated that interspecific differences in the extent of sensory pitting in the beak bones correlate with aquatic habitat use of ibises, and have been suggested to reflect different levels of remote-touch sensitivity. Our study investigates the interspecific differences in the bone and soft tissue histology of the bill-tip organs of three species of southern African ibises from different habitats (mainly terrestrial to mainly aquatic). We analysed the external pitting pattern on the bones, as well as internal structure of the beak using micro-CT scans and soft tissue histological sections of each species' bill-tip organs. The beaks of all three species contain remote-touch bill-tip organs and are described here in detail. Clear interspecific differences are evident between the species' bill-tip organs, both in terms of bone morphology and soft tissue histology. Glossy Ibises, which forage exclusively in wetter substrates, have a greater extent of pitting but lower numbers of Herbst corpuscles in each pit, while species foraging in drier substrates (Hadeda and Sacred Ibises) have more robust beaks, fewer pits and higher densities of Herbst corpuscles. Our data, together with previously published histological descriptions of the bill-tip organs of other remote-touch foraging bird species, indicate that species foraging in drier habitats have more sensitive bill-tip organs (based on their anatomy). The vibrations produced by prey (e.g., burrowing invertebrates) travel poorly in dry substrates compared with wetter ones (i.e., dry soil vs. mud or water), and thus we hypothesise that a more sensitive bill-tip organ may be required to successfully locate prey in dry substrates. Furthermore, our results indicate that the differences in bill-tip organ anatomy between the species reflect complex trade-offs between morphological constraints of beak shape and remote-touch sensitivity requirements, both of which are likely related to each species' foraging behaviour and substrate usage. Our study suggests that structures in the bone of the bill-tip organ could provide valuable osteological correlates for the associated soft tissues, and consequently may provide information on the sensory ecology and habitat usage of the birds in the absence of soft tissues.
| S-EPMC9482703 | biostudies-literature
Project description:Organisms are subject to physical forces that influence morphological evolution. Birds use their bills as implements to perform various functions, each exerting unique physical demands. When excavating cavities, bird bills must resist a range of mechanical stresses to prevent fracture. However, the contribution of bill geometry and material composition to excavation stress resistance remains poorly understood. Here, we study the biomechanical consequences of bill diversification in the cavity-excavating palaeotropical barbets. Using finite-element models and beam theory, we compare excavation performance for two loading regimes experienced by barbet bills during cavity excavation: impact and torsion. We find that deeper and wider maxillae perform better for impact loads than for torsional loads, with the converse for narrower maxillae. This results in tradeoffs between impact and torsion resistance imposed by bill geometry. Analytical beam models validate this prediction, showing that this relationship holds even when maxillae are simplified to solid elliptical beams. Finally, we find that composite bill structures broadly exhibit lower stresses than homogeneous structures of the same geometry, indicating a functional synergy between the keratinous rhamphotheca and bony layers of the bill. Overall, our findings demonstrate the strong link between morphological evolution, behaviour and functional performance in organisms.
| S-EPMC10050923 | biostudies-literature
Project description:Ecological divergence is thought to be coupled with evolutionary radiations, yet the strength of this coupling is unclear. When birds diversified ecologically has received much less attention than their hotly debated crown divergence time. Here, we quantify how accurately skeletal morphology can predict ecology in living and extinct birds, and show that the earliest known assemblage of birds (=pygostylians) from the Jehol Biota (≈125 Ma) was substantially impoverished ecologically. The Jehol avifauna has few representatives of highly preservable ecomorphs (e.g. aquatic forms) and a notable lack of ecomorphological overlap with the pterosaur assemblage (e.g. no large or aerially foraging pygostylians). Comparisons of the Jehol functional diversity with modern and subfossil avian assemblages show that taphonomic bias alone cannot explain the ecomorphological impoverishment. However, evolutionary simulations suggest that the constrained ecological diversity of the Early Cretaceous pygostylians is consistent with what is expected from a relatively young radiation. Regardless of the proximate biological explanation, the anomalously low functional diversity of the Jehol birds is evidence both for ecological vacancies in Cretaceous ecosystems, which were subsequently filled by the radiation of crown Aves, and for discordance between taxonomic richness and ecological diversity in the best-known Mesozoic ecosystem.
| S-EPMC4071546 | biostudies-literature
Project description:BackgroundResearch on variation in bill morphology has focused on the role of diet. Bills have other functions, however, including a role in heat and water balance. The role of the bill in heat loss may be particularly important in birds where water is limiting. Song sparrows localized in coastal dunes and salt marsh edge (Melospiza melodia atlantica) are similar in size to, but have bills with a 17% greater surface area than, those that live in mesic habitats (M. m. melodia), a pattern shared with other coastal sparrows. We tested the hypotheses that sparrows can use their bills to dissipate "dry" heat, and that heat loss from the bill is higher in M. m. atlantica than M. m. melodia, which would indicate a role of heat loss and water conservation in selection for bill size.Methodology/principal findingsBill, tarsus, and body surface temperatures were measured using thermal imaging of sparrows exposed to temperatures from 15-37°C and combined with surface area and physical modeling to estimate the contribution of each body part to total heat loss. Song sparrow bills averaged 5-10°C hotter than ambient. The bill of M. m atlantica dissipated up to 33% more heat and 38% greater proportion of total heat than that of M. m. melodia. This could potentially reduce water loss requirements by approximately 7.7%.Conclusions/significanceThis >30% higher heat loss in the bill of M. m. atlantica is independent of evaporative water loss and thus could play an important role in the water balance of sparrows occupying the hot and exposed dune/salt marsh environments during the summer. Heat loss capacity and water conservation could play an important role in the selection for bill size differences between bird populations and should be considered along with trophic adaptations when studying variation in bill size.
| S-EPMC3405045 | biostudies-literature
Project description:The Early Cretaceous is a critical interval in the early history of birds. Exceptional fossils indicate that important evolutionary novelties such as a pygostyle and a keeled sternum had already arisen in Early Cretaceous taxa, bridging much of the morphological gap between Archaeopteryx and crown birds. However, detailed features of basal bird evolution remain obscure because of both the small sample of fossil taxa previously considered and a lack of quantitative studies assessing rates of morphological evolution. Here we apply a recently available phylogenetic method and associated sensitivity tests to a large data matrix of morphological characters to quantify rates of morphological evolution in Early Cretaceous birds. Our results reveal that although rates were highly heterogeneous between different Early Cretaceous avian lineages, consistent patterns of significantly high or low rates were harder to pinpoint. Nevertheless, evidence for accelerated evolutionary rates is strongest at the point when Ornithuromorpha (the clade comprises all extant birds and descendants from their most recent common ancestors) split from Enantiornithes (a diverse clade that went extinct at the end-Cretaceous), consistent with the hypothesis that this key split opened up new niches and ultimately led to greater diversity for these two dominant clades of Mesozoic birds.
| S-EPMC4843658 | biostudies-literature
Project description:Recently, comprehensive morphological datasets including nearly all the well-recognized Mesozoic birds became available, making it feasible for statistically rigorous methods to unveil finer evolutionary patterns during early avian evolution. Here, we exploited the advantage of Bayesian tip dating under relaxed morphological clocks to estimate both the divergence times and evolutionary rates while accounting for their uncertainties. We further subdivided the characters into six body regions (i.e. skull, axial skeleton, pectoral girdle and sternum, forelimb, pelvic girdle and hindlimb) to assess evolutionary rate heterogeneity both along the lineages and across partitions. We observed extremely high rates of morphological character changes during early avian evolution, and the clock rates are quite heterogeneous among the six regions. The branch subtending Pygostylia shows an extremely high rate in the axial skeleton, while the branches subtending Ornithothoraces and Enantiornithes show notably high rates in the pectoral girdle and sternum and moderately high rates in the forelimb. The extensive modifications in these body regions largely correspond to refinement of the flight capability. This study reveals the power and flexibility of Bayesian tip dating implemented in MrBayes to investigate evolutionary dynamics in deep time.
| S-EPMC6689603 | biostudies-literature
Project description:The effect of the Cretaceous-Paleogene (K-Pg) (formerly Cretaceous-Tertiary, K-T) mass extinction on avian evolution is debated, primarily because of the poor fossil record of Late Cretaceous birds. In particular, it remains unclear whether archaic birds became extinct gradually over the course of the Cretaceous or whether they remained diverse up to the end of the Cretaceous and perished in the K-Pg mass extinction. Here, we describe a diverse avifauna from the latest Maastrichtian of western North America, which provides definitive evidence for the persistence of a range of archaic birds to within 300,000 y of the K-Pg boundary. A total of 17 species are identified, including 7 species of archaic bird, representing Enantiornithes, Ichthyornithes, Hesperornithes, and an Apsaravis-like bird. None of these groups are known to survive into the Paleogene, and their persistence into the latest Maastrichtian therefore provides strong evidence for a mass extinction of archaic birds coinciding with the Chicxulub asteroid impact. Most of the birds described here represent advanced ornithurines, showing that a major radiation of Ornithurae preceded the end of the Cretaceous, but none can be definitively referred to the Neornithes. This avifauna is the most diverse known from the Late Cretaceous, and although size disparity is lower than in modern birds, the assemblage includes both smaller forms and some of the largest volant birds known from the Mesozoic, emphasizing the degree to which avian diversification had proceeded by the end of the age of dinosaurs.
| S-EPMC3174646 | biostudies-literature
Project description:Three families of probe-foraging birds, Scolopacidae (sandpipers and snipes), Apterygidae (kiwi), and Threskiornithidae (ibises, including spoonbills) have independently evolved long, narrow bills containing clusters of vibration-sensitive mechanoreceptors (Herbst corpuscles) within pits in the bill-tip. These 'bill-tip organs' allow birds to detect buried or submerged prey via substrate-borne vibrations and/or interstitial pressure gradients. Shorebirds, kiwi and ibises are only distantly related, with the phylogenetic divide between kiwi and the other two taxa being particularly deep. We compared the bill-tip structure and associated somatosensory regions in the brains of kiwi and shorebirds to understand the degree of convergence of these systems between the two taxa. For comparison, we also included data from other taxa including waterfowl (Anatidae) and parrots (Psittaculidae and Cacatuidae), non-apterygid ratites, and other probe-foraging and non probe-foraging birds including non-scolopacid shorebirds (Charadriidae, Haematopodidae, Recurvirostridae and Sternidae). We show that the bill-tip organ structure was broadly similar between the Apterygidae and Scolopacidae, however some inter-specific variation was found in the number, shape and orientation of sensory pits between the two groups. Kiwi, scolopacid shorebirds, waterfowl and parrots all shared hypertrophy or near-hypertrophy of the principal sensory trigeminal nucleus. Hypertrophy of the nucleus basorostralis, however, occurred only in waterfowl, kiwi, three of the scolopacid species examined and a species of oystercatcher (Charadriiformes: Haematopodidae). Hypertrophy of the principal sensory trigeminal nucleus in kiwi, Scolopacidae, and other tactile specialists appears to have co-evolved alongside bill-tip specializations, whereas hypertrophy of nucleus basorostralis may be influenced to a greater extent by other sensory inputs. We suggest that similarities between kiwi and scolopacid bill-tip organs and associated somatosensory brain regions are likely a result of similar ecological selective pressures, with inter-specific variations reflecting finer-scale niche differentiation.
| S-EPMC3828210 | biostudies-literature
Project description:Mitochondrial genomes of all vertebrate animals analyzed to date have the same 37 genes, whose arrangement in the circular DNA molecule varies only in the relative position of a few genes. This relative conservation suggests that mitochondrial gene order characters have potential utility as phylogenetic markers for higher-level vertebrate taxa. We report discovery of a mitochondrial gene order that has had multiple independent originations within birds, based on sampling of 137 species representing 13 traditionally recognized orders. This provides evidence of parallel evolution in mitochondrial gene order for animals. Our results indicate operation of physical constraints on mitochondrial gene order changes and support models for gene order change based on replication error. Bird mitochondria have a displaced OL (origin of light-strand replication site) as do various other Reptilia taxa prone to gene order changes. Our findings point to the need for broad taxonomic sampling in using mitochondrial gene order for phylogenetic analyses. We found, however, that the alternative mitochondrial gene orders distinguish the two primary groups of songbirds (order Passeriformes), oscines and suboscines, in agreement with other molecular as well as morphological data sets. Thus, although mitochondrial gene order characters appear susceptible to some parallel evolution because of mechanistic constraints, they do hold promise for phylogenetic studies.
| S-EPMC27957 | biostudies-literature
Project description:When light illuminates the junction formed between a sharp metal tip and a sample, different mechanisms can contribute to the measured photoinduced force simultaneously. Of particular interest are the instantaneous force between the induced dipoles in the tip and in the sample, and the force related to thermal heating of the junction. A key difference between these 2 force mechanisms is their spectral behavior. The magnitude of the thermal response follows a dissipative (absorptive) Lorentzian line shape, which measures the heat exchange between light and matter, while the induced dipole response exhibits a dispersive spectrum and relates to the real part of the material polarizability. Because the 2 interactions are sometimes comparable in magnitude, the origin of the chemical selectivity in nanoscale spectroscopic imaging through force detection is often unclear. Here, we demonstrate theoretically and experimentally how the light illumination gives rise to the 2 kinds of photoinduced forces at the tip-sample junction in the midinfrared. We comprehensively address the origin of the spectroscopic forces by discussing cases where the 2 spectrally dependent forces are entwined. The analysis presented here provides a clear and quantitative interpretation of nanoscale chemical measurements of heterogeneous materials and sheds light on the nature of light-matter coupling in optomechanical force-based spectronanoscopy.
| S-EPMC6936718 | biostudies-literature