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This research was funded by generous donations of Gretchen Augustyn to the Dinosaur Institute of the NHMLA. SMN is funded by a FPI-UAM 2019 predoctoral grant from the Universidad Autonoma de Madrid. GN is funded by the European Union's Horizon 2020 research and innovation program 2014-2018 under grant agreement 677774 (European Research Council (ERC) Starting Grant: TEMPO).

Analysis of institutional authors

Marugan-Lobon, JAuthorNebreda, SmAuthor

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August 2, 2021
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Quantitative Analysis of Morphometric Data of Pre-modern Birds: Phylogenetic Versus Ecological Signal

Publicated to:Frontiers in Earth Science. 9 663342- - 2021-07-06 9(), DOI: 10.3389/feart.2021.663342

Authors: Bell, Alyssa; Marugan-Lobon, Jesus; Navalon, Guillermo; Nebreda, Sergio M.; DiGuildo, John; Chiappe, Luis M.;

Affiliations

Calif State Polytech Univ Pomona, Dept Biol Sci, Pomona, CA 91768 USA - Author
Nat Hist Museum Los Angeles Cty, Dinosaur Inst, Los Angeles, CA USA - Author
Univ Autonoma Madrid, Dept Biol, Unidad Paleontol, Madrid, Spain - Author
Univ Oxford, Dept Earth Sci, Oxford, England - Author

Abstract

Birds are one of the most diverse clades of extant terrestrial vertebrates, a diversity that first arose during the Mesozoic as a multitude of lineages of pre-neornithine (stem) birds appeared but did not survive into the Cenozoic Era. Modern birds (Neornithes) inhabit an extensive array of ecologically distinct habitats and have specific and varied foraging strategies. Likewise, the morphological disparity among Mesozoic lineages appears to underscore a significant degree of ecological diversity, yet attempts to determine lineage-specific ecologies have mainly been limited to superficial narratives. In recent years, numerous studies have used various morphometric proxies to interpret the paleoecology of Mesozoic bird lineages, but largely without evaluating the interplay between ecological and phylogenetic signals. Moreover, most studies of this sort transform the original data into logarithms to control dimensionality, underestimating the biases induced upon such transformations. The goal of this study is to quantitatively address the ecomorphology of crown-group Neornithes using a dense sample of raw forelimb and hindlimb measurements, and to examine if such results can be used to infer the ecologies of Mesozoic bird lineages. To that end, scaling of limb measurements and ecological data from modern birds was assessed statistically using phylogenetic comparative methods, followed by the inclusion of fossil taxa. A strong relationship was recovered between humerus and hindlimb allometric scaling and phylogeny. Our results indicate that while some ecological classes of modern birds can be discriminated from each other, phylogenetic signature can overwhelm ecological signal in morphometric data, potentially limiting the inferences that can be made from ecomorphological studies. Furthermore, we found differential scaling of leg bones among Early Cretaceous enantiornithines and ornithuromorphs, a result hinting that habitat partitioning among different lineages could be a pervasive phenomenon in avian evolution.

Keywords

AvesAves ornithothoracesEcologyEcomorphologyEnantiornithesEvolutionary radiationFlightFossil recordLocomotionMesozoic birdsModesNeornithesOriginsOrnithuromorphaPhylogenyR package

Quality index

Bibliometric impact. Analysis of the contribution and dissemination channel

The work has been published in the journal Frontiers in Earth Science due to its progression and the good impact it has achieved in recent years, according to the agency WoS (JCR), it has become a reference in its field. In the year of publication of the work, 2021, it was in position 76/202, thus managing to position itself as a Q2 (Segundo Cuartil), in the category Geosciences, Multidisciplinary.

From a relative perspective, and based on the normalized impact indicator calculated from the Field Citation Ratio (FCR) of the Dimensions source, it yields a value of: 2.07, which indicates that, compared to works in the same discipline and in the same year of publication, it ranks as a work cited above average. (source consulted: Dimensions Aug 2025)

Specifically, and according to different indexing agencies, this work has accumulated citations as of 2025-08-04, the following number of citations:

  • WoS: 1

Impact and social visibility

From the perspective of influence or social adoption, and based on metrics associated with mentions and interactions provided by agencies specializing in calculating the so-called "Alternative or Social Metrics," we can highlight as of 2025-08-04:

  • The use, from an academic perspective evidenced by the Altmetric agency indicator referring to aggregations made by the personal bibliographic manager Mendeley, gives us a total of: 23.
  • The use of this contribution in bookmarks, code forks, additions to favorite lists for recurrent reading, as well as general views, indicates that someone is using the publication as a basis for their current work. This may be a notable indicator of future more formal and academic citations. This claim is supported by the result of the "Capture" indicator, which yields a total of: 24 (PlumX).

With a more dissemination-oriented intent and targeting more general audiences, we can observe other more global scores such as:

  • The Total Score from Altmetric: 14.35.
  • The number of mentions on the social network Facebook: 1 (Altmetric).
  • The number of mentions on the social network X (formerly Twitter): 11 (Altmetric).
  • The number of mentions on Wikipedia: 1 (Altmetric).

It is essential to present evidence supporting full alignment with institutional principles and guidelines on Open Science and the Conservation and Dissemination of Intellectual Heritage. A clear example of this is:

  • The work has been submitted to a journal whose editorial policy allows open Open Access publication.
  • Assignment of a Handle/URN as an identifier within the deposit in the Institutional Repository: https://repositorio.uam.es/handle/10486/705668

Leadership analysis of institutional authors

This work has been carried out with international collaboration, specifically with researchers from: United Kingdom; United States of America.