Evolution of avian foot morphology through anatomical network analysis

Avian evolution led to morphological adaptive variations in feet. Diverse foot types are accompanied by a diverse muscle system, allowing birds to adopt different primary lifestyles, and to display various locomotor and manipulative skills. We provide insights of evolutionary and functional signific...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Nature communications 2024-11, Vol.15 (1), p.9888-9, Article 9888
Main Authors: Carril, Julieta, De Mendoza, Ricardo S., Degrange, Federico J., Barbeito, Claudio G., Tambussi, Claudia P.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
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Adaptive systems
Animals
Biological Evolution
Birds
Birds - anatomy & histology
Birds - physiology
Bones
Connectivity
Constraints
Dinosaurs
Dinosaurs - anatomy & histology
Evolution
Feet
Foot - anatomy & histology
Fossils - anatomy & histology
Humanities and Social Sciences
Lifestyles
Locomotion - physiology
Morphology
multidisciplinary
Network analysis
Phylogeny
Science
Science (multidisciplinary)
Simplification
Skills
Skin
Task complexity
Taxonomy
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Summary:Avian evolution led to morphological adaptive variations in feet. Diverse foot types are accompanied by a diverse muscle system, allowing birds to adopt different primary lifestyles, and to display various locomotor and manipulative skills. We provide insights of evolutionary and functional significance on the avian foot architecture through Anatomical Network Analysis, a methodology focused on connectivity patterns of anatomical parts. Here, we show that: (1) anatomical parts largely conserved in living birds and already present in ancestral dinosaurs exhibit the highest connectivity degree, (2) there is no link between the more complex foot networks and the ability to perform more specialized skills or a higher number of different tasks, (3) there is a trend towards the simplification of foot networks on a macroevolutionary scale within birds, and (4) foot networks are phylogenetically constrained and conserved in all birds despite their foot type diversity, probably due to stabilizing selection. Birds have evolved a large diversity of foot morphologies in the past 100 million years. Here, the authors use anatomical network analysis to find a constrained foot organization, a trend toward simplification, and no association between foot complexity and foot specialization.
ISSN:2041-1723
2041-1723
DOI:10.1038/s41467-024-54297-9