January
22, 2019, University of Bristol
A study,
led by the University of Bristol, has shed some new light on how the beaks of
birds have adapted over time.
The
observation that Galapagos finch species possessed different beak shapes to
obtain different foods was central to the theory of evolution by natural
selection, and it has been assumed that this form-function relationship holds
true across all species of bird.
However,
a new study published in the journal Evolution suggests the beaks
of birds are
not as adapted to the food types they feed on as it is generally believed.
An
international team of scientists from the United Kingdom, Spain and the US used
computational and mathematical techniques to better understand the connection
between beak shapes and functions in living birds.
By
measuring beak shape in a wide range of modern bird species from museum
collections and looking at information about how the beak is used by different
species to eat different foods, the team were able to assess the link between
beak shape and feeding behaviour.
Professor
Emily Rayfield, from the University of Bristol's School of Earth Sciences, and
senior author of the study, said: "This is, to our knowledge, the first
approach to test a long-standing principle in biology: that the beak shape and
function of birds is tightly linked to their feeding ecologies."
Guillermo
Navalón, lead author of the study and a final year Ph.D. student at Bristol's
School of Earth Sciences, added: "The connection between beak shapes and
feeding ecology in birds was much weaker and more complex than we expected and
that while there is definitely a relationship there, many species with
similarly shaped beaks forage in entirely different ways and on entirely
different kinds of food.
"This
is something that has been shown in other animal groups, but in birds this
relationship was always assumed to be stronger."
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