Statistical approach for inferring ecology of Mesozoic birds

Abstract

The ability to identify the ecological role an organism plays is fundamental to modern ecology and is an important goal of palaeontological studies. Morphometrics has the potential to be a statistically robust means of furthering this goal, identifying ecomorphological trends within a group of organisms. The dramatic morphological and ecological diversity of modern and fossil birds makes them ideal for ecomorphological studies, and the vast increase in known Mesozoic avian diversity opens numerous possibilities for applying modern ecomorphology to enhance our understanding of avian diversification in the Mesozoic. This study presents a large morphometric database of modern birds analysed using a multivariate statistical approach, in order to identify correlations between ecology and morphology. These relationships were also examined in a number of Mesozoic birds in order to investigate both the ecological diversification of early birds as a whole and the specific ecological roles individual taxa may have played.

Keywords:

• palaeontology
• Mesozoic
• evolution
• Aves
• morphometrics

Acknowledgements

The authors would like to thank Chris McDonald for all his hard work measuring skeletons. We are also grateful to the Dinosaur Institute and the Department of Earth Sciences of the University of Southern California for funding, as well as Jesús Marugaán-Lobon and the reviewers of the manuscript for their helpful comments.