ORNITHOLOGY EXAM 1

Science Diagnostic Features

1. Repeatability

2. Economy

3. Measurement

4. Heuristic

5. Consilience

Causation in Biology

Ultimate: Mechanical (How?)

Proximate: Evolutionary (Why?)

Historical Events in Ornithology

Cave Wall Paintings:

• France/Spain - 14,000 BCE

• Turkey - 1,800 BCE

• Thebe, Egypt - 2,000 BCE

• Knososs, Crete - 1,800 BCE

Domesticated to become our chicken

Red Junglefowl

Domestic Chickens Historically

India - 3,000 BCE

China - 1,500 BCE

Greece - 700 BCE

Roman Empire (27 - 476 BCE) = large breeding farms 

First Poultry Exhibit 

Boston, Massachusetts - 1849

American Poultry Association (APA)

• Founded in 1873

• Published American Standard of Perfection

• Depicts the optimum features of more than 100 domestic fowl, ducks, geese, and turkeys.

Domesticated Species

• Mallard Duck - 1,000 BCE in the orient

• Wild Turkey - 1,000 BCE in Mexico

• Rock Pigeon - domesticated for food/communication in 2,000 BCE in ancient Babylon, 3,000 BCE in Egypt, 20th Century for communication, and presently, as food

Falconry?

• Hunting technique since about 2,000 BCE

• On the Art of Hunting with Birds - 1240s by Frederick II of the House of Hohenstaufen

Aristotle

• Wrote History of Animals in 300 BCE

• First record of objective and organized scientific research results

The Natural History of Antiquities of Selborne

English Clergyman Gilbert White

The Ornithology of Shakespeare

James Harting wrote it to document bird species in Shakespeare’s poems and plays.

As recently as the ___, a tally of organisms providing textbook examples of biological principles listed birds first among any other vertebrae taxa.

1980s

1973 Nobel Prize 

Awarded to Konrad Lorenz and Niko Tinbergen (birds integral to their works) and Frisch (Honeybee)

B Vitamins Importance discovered how?

Chickens!

Albert Szent-Gyorgi

Kreb’s Cycle - Rock Pigeon Muscle

Payton Rous

Connection btwn cancer/viruses and birds

Do birds heal fast?

Remarkably fast!

B Cells

First described and named from studies of the Bursa of Fabricius - a lymphoid organ in the wall of the avian cloaca

Is there a Bursa of Fabricius in mammals?

No

How did environmental movement begin in US?

• Rachel Carson published Silent Spring in 1962, in which birds play a defining prominent source of data used to measure environmental health “barometers”

Extinct Birds

Dodo, Great Auk, Labrador Duck, Passenger Pigeon, Carolina Parakeet, Ivory Woodpecker, Bachman’s Warbler

Australian Emu Wars of 1932

Emus vs Australian military - Won by the emus

Aristotle

384 - 322 BCE

• Classification, Development, Territoriality

A. Wilson

• “Father of American Ornithology”

J.J. Audobon 

1785 - 1851 

William Cooper

American Zoologist (Conchologist)

• Cooper’s Hawk named after him

Charles Darwin and Alfred Russell Wallace

People

James G. Cooper

namesake of Cooper Ornithological Society

Elliot Coues

Army Surgeon

Spencer Baird

First curator of Smithsonian Institution

F. M. Chapman

Curator of birds at the American Museum of Natural History, New York City; started AUdubon Christmas Counts in 1900

R. Ridgway

Curator of Birds at U.S. National Museum, Smithsonian Institution, from Southern Illinois

A.C. Bent

author of Life Histories of Birds of North America

Joseph Grinnell

Author of Field Notebook technique

Margaret Morse Nice

A pioneering professional woman scientist - American Ornithologist

• Life History of the Song Sparrow

Ludlow Griscom 

“The Dean of the Birdwatchers”

R.T. Peterson

author of first modern field guide

A.D. Cruickshank

worked for National Audubon Society - American Birds journal

Maurice Brown 

• Worked at Hawk Mountain Sanctuary 

Ernst Mayr

The “Darwin of Modern Times”

Bronx Birding Club

Kingdoms of Living Things

• Monera

  • Archaebacteria

  • Eubacteria

• Protista

• Plantae

• Fungi

• Animalia

How many new species are named each year?

About 7,000 to 10,000

How many species formally named by science?

1.4 Million

How many species on the planet?

7 Million to 30 Million

Percentages of Kingdom Representation

• 5% Protists

• 22% Plants

• Most others are animals

Phylum Chordata

Phylum Chordata

• Subphylum Vertebra

  • Class Agnatha

  • Class Chondrichthyes

  • Class Osteichthyes

  • Class Amphibia

  • Class Reptilia

  • Class Aves

  • Class Mammalia

Phylum Chordata Criteria

1. Dorsal Hollow Nerve Tube

2. Notochord

3. Gill Slits

Class Aves

1. Feathers (unique to extant birds)

2. Wings

3. Endothermy

Additional Diagnostic Criteria of Class Aves

1. Bill

2. No extant birds have true teeth

3. Furcula

4. Single occipital condyle 

5. Nucleated red blood cells

6. Columella

7. Synsacrum

8. Pygostyle

9. Large external egg (Cleidoic = Amniotic = Terrestrial)

10. Differentially developed young 

11. Diverse mating systems

12. Avian female is ZW

13. Diverse life history strategies, longevity, survivorship, fecundity, natality, mortality

14. Biogeographic Regions 

Adaptations and Preadaptations 

1. Morphological (structural)

2. Physiological (functional) 

3. Ethological (behavioral)

Theories about Origin of Flight

1. Arboreal

2. Cursorial

Forces in Flight

1. Weight

2. Drag (Profile, Induced)

3. Thrust

4. Lift

Evolution of Flight

1. Reduce Weight

2. Increase Power 

Sourcing Technqiues

1. Thermals

2. Deflective Winds

Hummingbird Hovering Rate

53 strokes/s

V - formation

Energy saving, except for leader 

Alula (False Wing, Spurious Wing, Bastard Wing)

• 3 small contour feathers attached to 1st digit of wing or carpal joint

• Helps stalling at slow speeds

• Most hummingbirds have no alula

Wing Loading

mass (g) / SA (cm²)

Aspect Ratio

wing span² / wing SA

Diversity of Life on Earth Best Explained By

1. Phyletic Evolution

2. Speciation

3. Extinction

Phyletic Evolution

Gradual changes over geologic time of a single lineage guided by natural selection

How many birds on earth?

300 billion

How many birds in North America?

10 billion at start of breeding season, 20 billion in fall

How many birds lost to North American bird population since 1970 - 2019?

3 billion (29%)

Absolute Dating System

Radiometric Dating

Relative Dating System

Rock Strata

Biological fields providing evidence supporting organic evolution

1. Molecular Biology

2. Biogeography

3. Comparative embryology

4. Comparative anatomy

5. Paleontology

Deme

local interbreeding population

Heterochrony

1. Paedomorphosis → the expression of juvenile traits in adults is termed neotony

What can cause geographic isolation?

1. Vicariance → rivers, mountain ranges, continental drift

2. Dispersal

Components of Organic Evolution

1. Change over time

2. Change is directed by natural selection

Principal opposing forces in organic evolution

1. Natural Selection

2. Gene Flow

Prezygotic Isolation Mechanisms

1. Temporal

2. Behavioral

3. Gametic

4. Mechanical

5. Habitat

Postzygotic Isolation Mechanisms

1. Hybrid Inviability

2. Hybrid Sterility

3. Hybrid Elimination

4. Developmental

Special Plant Speciation - Autopolyploidy

Chromosome doubling

Special Plant Speciation - Allopolyploidy

Combining of chromosome numbers from two separate species to form a new species

Hardy-Weinberg Theorem Conditions of Stability

1. No immigration or emigration

2. Large populations > 10,000

3. Random reproduction

4. No mutations

5. No selection

Modes of Organic Evolution

1. Anagenesis - Phyletic Evolution

2. Cladogenesis - Divergent Evolution

Anagenesis

One species evolves into another over time

Cladogenesis

A common ancestor gives rise to two lines of descent that evolve into separate species over time. Base on monophyletic groups.

Evolutionary Schools of Thought

1. Phenotypic, Phenetic, or Classical Taxonomy

2. Numerical Taxonomy

3. Cladistics or Phylogenetic Systematics

4. Classic Evolutionary Systematics

The New Synthesis

Biochemistry + Cladistics

Cladistic Analysis

1. Synapomorphies - ancestral/shared

2. Apomorphies - derived/changed

First bird in the fossil record

Archaeopteryx lithographica

How many bird species evolved from the earliest ones?

100,000 (now, 9 in 10 of these are extinct)

Major period of avian diversification when?

Mesozoic Era - 150 to 65 mya

Then, Tertiary period (65 mya to 1.5 mya) of Cenozoic Era - 65 mya to present

When did atmospheric Oxygen increase?

Early Jurassic Period (190 mya) of Mesozoic and Eocene Epoch of the Cenozoic

2 Major Exticntions when?

1. Late Cretaceous Period of Mesozoic (65 mya)

• Survivors: Chicken, waterfowl, raptor, shorebirds

2. Pleistocene Epoch (3 Mya) - 25% of 13,333 species became extinct

Hypothesis about ancestral origin of birds:

À) birds evolved from small theropod dinosaurs

B) birds evolved from a thecodont ancestor of dinosaurs and crocodilians

Two major avian radiations when?

Cretaceous

What radiation dominated first half of avian evolution?

Enantiornithes

What birds gave rise to modern birds?

Ornithurae

What 3 major radiations gave rise to modern birds?

1. Ratites and Tinamous

2. Non-passerines

3. Passerines

What was the climate during the tertiary period?

Warm from pole to pole

when did Pangea start separating and into what

180 mya into Laurasia in the north and Gondwanaland in the south

Diatrymas

Huge flightless birds with massive legs, clawed toes, hooked bill, size of horses

two waves of diverse bird radiation

1. Non-passerines - water birds diversified

2. Passerines - evolution of plants and insects opened up new ecological niches

Wyoming birds

Long-legged vulture-like birds

Are flamingos Anseriformes or Ciconiiformes?

Neither. Podicipediformes