ancient dna provides new insights into the evolutionary history of new zealands extinct giant eagle古代dna提供了新的见解的进化历史新西兰灭绝的巨鹰.pdfVIP

Open access, freely available online PLoS BIOLOGY Ancient DNA Provides New Insights into the Evolutionary History of New Zealand’s Extinct Giant Eagle 1,2* 1 3 4 1 1 Michael Bunce , Marta Szulkin , Heather R. L. Lerner , Ian Barnes , Beth Shapiro , Alan Cooper , 5 Richard N. Holdaway 1 Henry Wellcome Ancient Biomolecules Centre, Department of Zoology, University of Oxford, United Kingdom, 2 Department of Anthropology, McMaster University, Ontario, Canada, 3 Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Michigan, United States of America, 4 Department of Biology, University College London, United Kingdom, 5 Palaecol Research, Christchurch, New Zealand Prior to human settlement 700 years ago New Zealand had no terrestrial mammals—apart from three species of bats— instead, approximately 250 avian species dominated the ecosystem. At the top of the food chain was the extinct Haast’s eagle, Harpagornis moorei. H. moorei (10–15 kg; 2–3 m wingspan) was 30%–40% heavier than the largest extant eagle (the harpy eagle, Harpia harpyja), and hunted moa up to 15 times its weight. In a dramatic example of morphological plasticity and rapid size increase, we show that the H. moorei was very closely related to one of the world’s smallest extant eagles, which is one-tenth its mass. This spectacular evolutionary change illustrates the potential speed of size alteration within lineages of vertebrates, especially in island ecosystems. Citation: Bunce M, Szulkin M, Lerner HRL, Barnes I, Shapiro B, et al. (2005) Ancient DNA provides new insights into the evolutionary history of New Zealand’s extinct giant