

Exhaustive family tree for birds shows recent, rapid diversification - tocomment
http://news.yale.edu/2012/10/31/exhaustive-family-tree-birds-shows-recent-rapid-diversification

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JoeAltmaier
I wonder at the claim that the rate of speciation is increasing. It has to be
a statistical argument; fossil evidence is sparse, while current bird species
have been catalogued diligently. Sure, we've not a complete catalog, but much
better than the fossil-historic one.

So, its hard to calculate an accurate speciation-rate number for say 2 million
years ago. We have little idea of how many species existed then; many may not
be represented in the fossil record. Perhaps there were more species then;
perhaps fewer.

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nine_k
TL;DR: the number of bird species was/is growing fast. This sharply
contradicts the current theories which state that ecological niches fill up
quickly, until a catastrophic event and mass extinction clears the space
again. Birds seem to find more and more niches for distinct species without
any catastrophes.

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tocomment
Is there anyway to see that graphic in a large, explorable format?

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gjuggler
There's an associated website at <http://birdtree.org/> .

They don't seem to be providing the actual phylogenetic tree data (there's a
cryptic note "More information will be made available here with the print
publication of the study"), but there is a link to a higher-resolution PDF:
[http://litoria.eeb.yale.edu/bird-
tree/images/BirdTreeHighRes...](http://litoria.eeb.yale.edu/bird-
tree/images/BirdTreeHighRes3.pdf)

You can also download the supplementary PDF at
[http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/vaop/ncurrent/extref/na...](http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/vaop/ncurrent/extref/nature11631-s1.pdf)
which has a lot more detail and some pretty pictures towards the bottom.

