Living Dinosaurs offers a snapshot of our current understanding of the origin and evolution of birds. After slumbering for more than a century, avian palaeontology has been awakened by startling new discoveries on almost every continent. Controversies about whether dinosaurs had real feathers or whether birds were related to dinosaurs have been swept away and replaced by new and more difficult questions: How old is the avian lineage? How did birds learn to fly? Which birds survived the great extinction that ended the Mesozoic Era and how did the avian genome evolve? Answers to these questions may help us understand how the different kinds of living birds are related to one another and how they evolved into their current niches. More importantly, they may help us understand what we need to do to help them survive the dramatic impacts of human activity on the planet.
Table of Content
Foreword.
List of Contributors.
Preface.
Part 1 Introduction: the Deep Evolutionary History of Modern
Birds.
Introduction: Changing the Questions in Avian Paleontology
(Gary Kaiser and Gareth Dyke).
1 Theropod Diversity and the Refinement of Avian Characteristics
(Peter J. Makovicky and Lindsay E. Zanno).
2 Why Were There Dinosaurs? Why Are There Birds? (Peter Ward
and Robert Berner).
3 Pre-modern Birds: Avian Divergences in the Mesozoic
(Jingmai O’Connor, Luis M. Chiappe, and Alyssa Bell).
Part 2 ‘The Contribution of Paleontology to Ornithology’: the
Diversity of Modern Birds: Fossils and the Avian Tree of
Life.
4 Progress and Obstacles in the Phylogenetics of Modern Birds
(Bradley C. Livezey).
5 The Utility of Fossil Taxa and the Evolution of Modern Birds:
Commentary and Analysis (Gareth Dyke and Eoin Gardiner).
6 Penguins Past, Present, and Future: Trends in the Evolution of
the Sphenisciformes (Daniel T. Ksepka and Tatsuro Ando).
7 Phorusrhacids: the Terror Birds (Herculano Alvarenga, Luis
Chiappe, and Sara Bertelli).
8 The Pseudo-toothed Birds (Aves, Odontopterygiformes) and their
Bearing on the Early Evolution of Modern Birds (Estelle
Bourdon).
9 Phylogeny and Diversification of Modern Passerines (F.
Keith Barker).
Part 3 The Evolution of Key Avian Attributes.
10 Morphological and Behavioral Correlates of Flapping Flight
(Bret W. Tobalske, Douglas R. Warrick, Brandon E. Jackson, and
Kenneth P. Dial).
11 Evolution of the Avian Brain and Senses (Stig Walsh and
Angela Milner).
12 Evolving Perceptions on the Antiquity of the Modern Avian
Tree (Joseph W. Brown and M. Van Tuinen).
13 Major Events in Avian Genome Evolution (Chris L. Organ and
Scott V. Edwards).
14 Bird Evolution Across the K-Pg Boundary and the Basal
Neornithine Diversification (Bent E. K. Lindow).
15 Functional and Phylogenetic Diversity in Marine and Aquatic
Birds (Gary Kaiser).
Part 4 The Future: Conservation and Climate Change.
16 The State of the World’s Birds and the Future of Avian
Diversity (Gavin H. Thomas).
Glossary.
Index.
Colour plates.
About the author
Gareth Dyke is a vertebrate palaeontologist who specialises
on the evolution of birds and their flight. He has worked on birds
of all ages, from the 140 million years old Archaeopteryx
right through to the bones of living ducks and gamebirds. He has
searched for fossils all over the world, but has a particular
interest in the geology and palaeontology of Eastern Europe. He has
worked in Ireland since 2002.
Gary Kaiser worked as a field biologist in Canada’s
migratory bird program from 1968 until retirement in 1999. He
specialized in the capture and tagging of birds, particularly
seabirds but began to study avian evolution in 1995. He combined
this new interest with knowleddge gained from handling birds to
write Inner Bird in 2007. He has also contributed to
Birds of British Columbia and Seabirds of the Russian Far
East.
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