“How do birds relate to each other? This was our fundamental first question,” says Tom Gilbert, lead author on one of the studies, and head of the section for evolutionary genomics at the Natural History Museum of Denmark, during Science’s press conference. The project spanned four years, and yielded 28 separate research papers, all published this week. Over 200 scientists from 20 countries joined together to form the Avian Phylogenomics Consortium, the umbrella organization for the research. By mapping the genomes of 45 bird species for the first time (and using three previously mapped genomes), the researchers were able to more closely trace relationships between species-and to confirm that birds underwent an early, rapid, ‘big bang’ that led to the evolution of the more than 10,000 species we have today. A spate of papers published today in the journal Science provides the clearest picture to date of the avian family tree. How birds evolved is a complex question that has puzzled biologists for decades.
