DOI: 10.5061/dryad.r2280gbmz
title: An evaluation of the usefulness of morphological characters to infer higher-level relationships in birds by mapping them to a molecular phylogeny

description: The considerable morphological variation observed among birds was codified
 into phylogenetic characters by Livezey and Zusi (2006). Herein we have
 evaluated the phylogenetic signal of 1,860 of these characters by mapping
 them to a molecular phylogeny including 102 taxa that represent all extant
 birds (with the underlying assumption that this tree topology is a good
 estimate of the evolutionary relationships among birds). The characters
 fit the molecular tree with a mean consistency index (CI) of 0.38. Muscle
 characters are the most homoplasious (CI 0.32), while characters related
 to integument, feathers, intestinal, respiratory, syrinx, urogenital,
 nervous, and reproductive organs show a considerably better fit (mean CI
 0.49). We also explored what characters may unambiguously support certain
 basal clades that are well-supported by molecular data. We found only a
 few clades (e.g., Galloanserae, Procellarimorphae) being supported by
 unambiguous apomorphies, while many well-established clades (e.g.,
 Pelecaniformes, Charadriiformes, Accipitriformes, Coraciiformes) lack such
 support entirely.
description: The dataset consists of a PAUP-file used to analyse the fit of
 the morphological variation among birds described by Livezey &
 Zusi (Livezey BC, Zusi RL. Higher-order phylogeny of modern birds
 (Theropoda, Aves: Neornithes) based on comparative anatomy: I. – Methods
 and characters. Bulletin of the Carnegie Museum of Natural History 2006;
 37; 1-556) to different molecular-based higher-level avian phylogenies
 published by Prum et al. (Prum RO, Berv JS, Dornburg A, et al., A
 comprehensive phylogeny of birds (Aves) using targeted next-generation DNA
 sequencing. Nature 2015; 526; 569-573) and Hackett et al. (Hackett SJ,
 Kimball RT, Reddy S, et al., A phylogenomic study of birds reveals their
 evolutionary history. Science 2008; 320; 1763-1768).
description: # An evaluation of the usefulness of morphological characters to infer
 higher-level relationships in birds by mapping them to a molecular
 phylogeny
 [https://doi.org/10.5061/dryad.r2280gbmz](https://doi.org/10.5061/dryad.r2280gbmz) ## Description of the data and file structure The nexus-formatted data file was built by combining the morphological variation published by Livezey & Zusi (Livezey BC, Zusi RL. Higher-order phylogeny of modern birds (Theropoda, Aves: Neornithes) based on comparative anatomy: I. – Methods and characters. Bulletin of the Carnegie Museum of Natural History 2006; 37; 1-556) for those 102 bird taxa that overlap with the taxa present in the molecular-based phylogeny published by Prum et al. (Prum RO, Berv JS, Dornburg A, et al., A comprehensive phylogeny of birds (Aves) using targeted next-generation DNA sequencing. Nature 2015; 526; 569-573). The file also includes the truncated "Prum et al. tree " and the molecular tree of Hackett et al. (Hackett SJ, Kimball RT, Reddy S, et al., A phylogenomic study of birds reveals their evolutionary history. Science 2008; 320; 1763-1768). The "Hackett et al. tree" is also truncated to include the taxa for which morphological variation has been described by Livezey & Zusi (2006). The analyses are published in: Ericson, PGP & Qu Y. *in press*. An evaluation of the usefulness of morphological characters to infer higher-level relationships in birds by mapping them to a molecular phylogeny. *Biological Journal of the Linnean Society.* ### Files and variables #### File: Dataset\_Ericson\_Qu\_2024-08-09.nex **Description:** A nexus-formatted file consisting of the morphological variation published by Livezey & Zusi (2006), the molecular-based phylogenies published by Prum et al. (2015) and Hackett et al. (2008), respectively. ## Code/software The nexus file can be opened in e.g. PAUP*.