PCI Paleontology

Title *

The impact of allometry on vomer shape and its implications for the taxonomy and cranial kinesis of crown-group birdsuse asterix (*) to get italics

Authors *

Olivia Plateau, Christian FothPlease use the format "First name initials family name" as in "Marie S. Curie, Niels H. D. Bohr, Albert Einstein, John R. R. Tolkien, Donna T. Strickland"

Year *

2021

Picture *

Abstract *

<p>Crown birds are subdivided into two main groups, Palaeognathae and Neognathae, that can be distinguished, among others, by the organization of the bones in their pterygoid-palatine complex (PPC). Shape variation to the vomer, which is the most anterior part of the PPC, was recently analysed by Hu et al. (2019) with help of geometric morphometrics to discover morphological differences between palaeognath and neognath birds. Based on this study, the vomer was identified as sufficient to distinguish the two main groups (and even more inclusive neognath groups) and their cranial kinetic system. As there are notable size differences between the skulls of palaeognaths and neognaths, we here investigate the impact of allometry on vomeral shape and its implication for taxonomic classification by re-analysing the data of the previous study. Different types of multivariate statistical analyses reveal that taxonomic identification based on vomeral shape is strongly impaired by allometry, as the error of correct identification is high when shape data is corrected for size. This finding is evident by a great overlap between palaeognath and neognath subclades in morphospace. The correct identification is further influenced by the convergent presence of a flattened vomeral morphotype in multiple neognath subclades. As the evolution of cranial kinesis has been linked to vomeral shape in the original study, the existing correlation between shape and size of the vomer across different bird groups found in the present study questions this conclusion. In fact, cranial kinesis in crown birds results from the loss of the jugal-postorbital bar in the temporal region and ectopterygoid in the PPC and the combination of a mobilized quadrate-zygomatic arch complex and a flexible PPC. Therefore, we can conclude that the vomer itself is not a suitable proxy for exploring the evolution of cranial kinesis in crown birds and their ancestors.</p>

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https://doi.org/10.1101/2020.07.02.184101You should fill this box only if you chose 'All or part of the results presented in this preprint are based on data'. URL must start with http:// or https://

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Keywords (optional)

vomer, pterygoid-palatine complex (PPC), birds, geometrics morphometrics

Methods that require specific expertise (optional)

NonePlease indicate the methods that may require specialised expertise during the peer review process (use a comma to separate various required expertises).

Thematic fields *

Comparative anatomy, Evolutionary biology, Macroevolution, Morphological evolution, Morphometrics, Taxonomy

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Submission date

2020-07-03 14:16:48

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Andrew Farke

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