The asteroid that strike Earth 65 million yr ago did n’t just suck for the big lizard . Shockwaves belike knocked down the trees , flame would have sting up entire forests , and less luminousness would have have in mind fewer plant . What if you were a bird who lived in those trees ! That was your abode !
New research shows how the strike would have decided which species made it and which mintage did n’t . Without Tree , only ground - live chick would have make it . This surely would have had a sound impingement on the form of species still around today — a bottleneck in development ’s story that changed the course of life perpetually .
“ The liquidation of forests fundamentally give a long - term key signature on the subsequent evolutionary story of birds , ” study writer Daniel J. Field , anevolutionary paleobiologist at the University of Bath , told Gizmodo . “ We call back that only non - tree lie bird species would be able to exceed through . ”
The researchers created their hypothesis by looking at a host of different data point point . For illustration , tree pollen went missing from the fossil record for a thousand eld after the asteroid strike . Bird fossils from that time period seem only to comprise of ground - dwellers . Put that together , and the news report emerges : An asteroid hit Earth and pass over out the trees , mean an evolutionary dead - final stage for any bird that could n’t make do elsewhere . The studywas published in Current Biology .
You might ask why are there so many tree - dwelling fowl today . It seems that once the timber came back , there was a massive variegation of species , and birds would have capitalized on the newfangled niches and colonized them quickly , said Field .
Other scientist enounce this research is an interesting way to tell the evolutionary story following the mass extinction . “ This paper presents an challenging account for why only a few lineages of birds survived the mass extinction issue and then later diversify tremendously in response to recover home ground , ” Sushma Reddy , assistant prof in biology at Loyola University Chicago , who was not affect with the subject area , told Gizmodo . “ It sets a newfangled hypothesis to be tested as more fogy are discovered . ”
But absence seizure of evidence is n’t the grounds of absence seizure — just because you do n’t find something does n’t mean it ’s not there . There could be more to the story yet to bring out . “ For the fossils we know about , it fits the possibility place out here . However , birds are ill-famed for have a very special fossil criminal record , ” enounce Reddy . Perhaps there ’s more evidence to digest the theory in other groups of animal , like mammals .
Still , mass extinctions are important pages in the Quran of Earth ’s history . Life , uh , finds a way .
[ Current Biology ]
BiologybirdmodoBirdsdinosaursPaleontologyScience
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