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Rates of passerine body plan evolution in time and space
Jacob S Berv1,2, Charlotte M Probst3, Santiago Claramunt4,5
1School for Environment and Sustainability, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI, USA. jacob.berv@gmail.com.
Nature Ecology & Evolution
|July 20, 2026
Summary
Evolutionary bursts, not gradual change, shaped bird diversity. Climate instability may drive these rapid phenotypic changes, influencing species across latitudes.
Area of Science:
- Evolutionary biology
- Paleontology
- Zoology
Background:
- Phenotypic evolution rates and patterns vary significantly across time and space.
- The underlying drivers of this evolutionary variation are not well understood.
- Passeriformes (perching birds) represent the most diverse avian order, making them ideal for studying diversification.
Purpose of the Study:
- To reconstruct the evolutionary history of passerine body plan diversification over the last ~50 million years.
- To identify the key drivers and patterns of phenotypic evolution in passerines.
- To investigate the link between climatic instability and evolutionary tempo.
Main Methods:
- Utilized over 170,000 skeletal measurements from 2,057 passerine species.
- Reconstructed the evolutionary history of body plan diversification.
- Analyzed temporal correlations with Earth's climatic history and contemporary latitudinal gradients.
Main Results:
- Passerine body plan evolution is characterized by rare, nested bursts of phenotypic innovation near the origins of major groups.
- These bursts of diversification played a disproportionately large role in shaping global passerine diversity.
- Bursts of evolution align with periods of increased climatic instability and are reflected in latitudinal gradients of evolutionary rates.
Conclusions:
- Climatic variability may be a recurring driver of phenotypic diversification.
- Deep-time evolutionary pulses are linked to broad-scale spatial patterns in evolutionary tempo.
- The study provides evidence for climate's role in shaping avian diversity patterns over millions of years.
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