[dinosaur] Bird genomes for most avian families + Gyps (vulture) genome (free pdfs)

Ben Creisler

New avian evolution papers:

Free pdf:

Shaohong Feng, Josefin Stiller, Yuan Deng, Joel Armstrong, Qi Fang, Andrew Hart Reeve, Duo Xie, Guangji Chen, Chunxue Guo, Brant C. Faircloth, Bent Petersen, Zongji Wang, Qi Zhou, Mark Diekhans, Wanjun Chen, Sergio Andreu-SÃnchez, Ashot Margaryan, Jason Travis Howard, Carole Parent, George Pacheco, Mikkel-Holger S. Sinding, Lara Puetz, Emily Cavill, Ãngela M. Ribeiro, Leopold Eckhart, Jon FjeldsÃ, Peter A. Hosner, Robb T. Brumfield, Les Christidis, Mads F. Bertelsen, Thomas Sicheritz-Ponten, Dieter Thomas Tietze, Bruce C. Robertson, Gang Song, Gerald Borgia, Santiago Claramunt, Irby J. Lovette, Saul J. Cowen, Peter Njoroge, John Philip Dumbacher, Oliver A. Ryder, JÃrÃme Fuchs, Michael Bunce, David W. Burt, Joel Cracraft, Guanliang Meng, Shannon J. Hackett, Peter G. Ryan, Knud Andreas JÃnsson, Ian G. Jamieson, Rute R. da Fonseca, Edward L. Braun, Peter Houde, Siavash Mirarab, Alexander Suh, Bengt Hansson, Suvi Ponnikas, Hanna Sigeman, Martin Stervander, Paul B. Frandsen, Henriette van der Zwan, Rencia van der Sluis, Carina Visser, Christopher N. Balakrishnan, Andrew G. Clark, John W. Fitzpatrick, Reed Bowman, Nancy Chen, Alison Cloutier, Timothy B. Sackton, Scott V. Edwards, Dustin J. Foote, Subir B. Shakya, Frederick H. Sheldon, Alain Vignal, AndrÃ E. R. Soares, Beth Shapiro, Jacob GonzÃlez-SolÃs, Joan Ferrer-Obiol, Julio Rozas, Marta Riutort, Anna Tigano, Vicki Friesen, Love DalÃn, Araxi O. Urrutia, TamÃs SzÃkely, Yang Liu, Michael G. Campana, AndrÃ Corvelo, Robert C. Fleischer, Kim M. Rutherford, Neil J. Gemmell, Nicolas Dussex, Henrik Mouritsen, Nadine Thiele, Kira Delmore, Miriam Liedvogel, Andre Franke, Marc P. Hoeppner, Oliver Krone, Adam M. Fudickar, Borja MilÃ, Ellen D. Ketterson, Andrew Eric Fidler, Guillermo Friis, Ãngela M. Parody-Merino, Phil F. Battley, Murray P. Cox, Nicholas Costa Barroso Lima, Francisco Prosdocimi, Thomas Lee Parchman, Barney A. Schlinger, Bette A. Loiselle, John G. Blake, Haw Chuan Lim, Lainy B. Day, Matthew J. Fuxjager, Maude W. Baldwin, Michael J. Braun, Morgan Wirthlin, Rebecca B. Dikow, T. Brandt Ryder, Glauco Camenisch, Lukas F. Keller, Jeffrey M. DaCosta, Mark E. Hauber, Matthew I. M. Louder, Christopher C. Witt, Jimmy A. McGuire, Joann Mudge, Libby C. Megna, Matthew D. Carling, Biao Wang, Scott A. Taylor, Glaucia Del-Rio, Alexandre Aleixo, Ana Tereza Ribeiro Vasconcelos, Claudio V. Mello, Jason T. Weir, David Haussler, Qiye Li, Huanming Yang, Jian Wang, Fumin Lei, Carsten Rahbek, M. Thomas P. Gilbert, Gary R. Graves, Erich D. Jarvis, Benedict Paten & Guojie Zhang (2020)
Dense sampling of bird diversity increases power of comparative genomics.
Nature 587: 252-257
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-020-2873-9
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-020-2873-9

Whole-genome sequencing projects are increasingly populating the tree of life and characterizing biodiversity. Sparse taxon sampling has previously been proposed to confound phylogenetic inference, and captures only a fraction of the genomic diversity. Here we report a substantial step towards the dense representation of avian phylogenetic and molecular diversity, by analysing 363 genomes from 92.4% of bird familiesâincluding 267 newly sequenced genomes produced for phase II of the Bird 10,000 Genomes (B10K) Project. We use this comparative genome dataset in combination with a pipeline that leverages a reference-free whole-genome alignment to identify orthologous regions in greater numbers than has previously been possible and to recognize genomic novelties in particular bird lineages. The densely sampled alignment provides a single-base-pair map of selection, has more than doubled the fraction of bases that are confidently predicted to be under conservation and reveals extensive patterns of weak selection in predominantly non-coding DNA. Our results demonstrate that increasing the diversity of genomes used in comparative studies can reveal more shared and lineage-specific variation, and improve the investigation of genomic characteristics. We anticipate that this genomic resource will offer new perspectives on evolutionary processes in cross-species comparative analyses and assist in efforts to conserve species.

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News:

Scientists release genomes of birds representing nearly all avian families

https://phys.org/news/2020-11-scientists-genomes-birds-avian-families.html

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Free pdf:

Emmanuel Oluwasegun Adawaren, Morne Du Plessis, Essa Suleman, Duodane Kindler, Almero O. Oosthuizen, Lillian Mukandiwa & Vinny Naidoo (2020)
The complete mitochondrial genome of Gyps coprotheres (Aves, Accipitridae, Accipitriformes): phylogenetic analysis of mitogenome among raptors.
PeerJ 8:e10034
doi: https://doi.org/10.7717/peerj.10034
https://peerj.com/articles/10034/

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Three species of Old World vultures on the Asian peninsula are slowly recovering from the lethal consequences of diclofenac. At present the reason for species sensitivity to diclofenac is unknown. Furthermore, it has since been demonstrated that other Old World vultures like the Cape (Gyps coprotheres; CGV) and griffon (G. fulvus) vultures are also susceptible to diclofenac toxicity. Oddly, the New World Turkey vulture (Cathartes aura) and pied crow (Corvus albus) are not susceptible to diclofenac toxicity. As a result of the latter, we postulate an evolutionary link to toxicity. As a first step in understanding the susceptibility to diclofenac toxicity, we use the CGV as a model species for phylogenetic evaluations, by comparing the relatedness of various raptor species known to be susceptible, non-susceptible and suspected by their relationship to the Cape vulture mitogenome. This was achieved by next generation sequencing and assembly. The Cape vulture mitogenome had a genome size of 16,908 bp. The mitogenome phylogenetic analysis indicated a close evolutionary relationship between Old World vultures and other members of the Accipitridae as indicated by bootstrap value of 100% on the phylogenetic trees. Based on this, we postulate that the other species could also be sensitive to the toxic effects of diclofenac. This warrants further investigations.