Unlike an intelligent designer, the process of evolution can't go back to basic and start again. It is normally an additive process that has no control over what it has to work with and simply refines and improves on what is there. That's not to say new structures can't evolve but they do so by enlarging or remodelling something that was already there - the membrane of a bat's wing, for example is the webbing that exists in the tetrapod embryo between the fingers and toes, while the feathers of a bird's wing are highly modified scales. Both those structures evolved out of tissues that were already there. It would have been impossible for a bat to grow wing feathers instead of a membrane, for example, because the earliest mammals had lost their scales and evolved fur.
But of course, that would not have been a problem for an omnipotent intelligent designer who, having designed one wing would not need to set about designing another way to do the same thing.
So, constrained as evolution was by what it could use, it's not really surprising that birds and bats evolved on two different trajectories, with the only thing in common being flight (and of course the basic vertebrate skeletal body plan).
The Broad-billed Tody, Todus subulatus, is a member of the bird group Coraciimorphae.
Image credit: Daniel Field, University of Cambridge
The Northern Flicker, Colaptes auratus, is a member of the bird group Coraciimorphae. Berv and co-authors identify this group of birds and others as having close ties to the end-Cretaceous mass extinction that occurred in the wake of the Chicxulub asteroid impact approximately 66 million years ago.
Image credit: Daniel Field, University of Cambridge
Another major milestone in the history of life on Earth happened, like almost everything else, in that long pre-Creation Week history that creationists need to ignore. It was the mass extinction about 66 million years ago that killed the non-avian dinosaurs and most megafauna, leaving vacant niches that could be exploited by the descendants of survivors. It's no surprise to anyone who understands how evolution works, that this led to a proliferation of new species as existing species diversified to fill those niches.
That much was known already from the fossil record, but now a University of Michigan study has found how this maps onto changes in the genome of the major bird families, as a kind of DNA fossil, just as the TOE predicts.
The major difference between the different taxons is how developed the chicks are on hatching and how dependent they are on their parents. In ducks, geese, the ratites and ground-nesting birds such as the plovers, chickens and turkeys, the chicks are mobile and able to feed themselves (precocial) almost as soon as they've hatched. At the other end of the scale, many passerines are helpless on hatching and are entirely dependent on their parents for food and shelter (altricial) for several weeks.
As the birds evolved and diversified, they tended to become smaller and also more altricial. This reduction in body size and increased altriciality are reflected in the genomes. It was these transitional changed that the researchers detected.
These major changes were occurring within 3-5 million years after the mass extinction.
In case any creationists are still under the delusion that mainstream biologists are abandoning the scientific Theory of Evolution (TOE) in favour of their childish magical story involving a magic man made of nothing who magicked everything into existence out of nothing with some magic words, here is an example of how the TOE is used to understand and make sense of the observable facts.
It addresses the question of how the ability to learn and imitate sounds evolved in birds.
Basically, ornithologists had thought that birds could be divided into two groups - those which can learn sounds (parrots, songbirds, and hummingbirds) and those which can’t - and that this ability in the former group had evolved sometime after modern birds had diversified from their avian dinosaur ancestors, but the fact that a small New Zealand bird, the titipounamu or rifleman, Acanthisitta chloris, has the rudiments of this ability suggests it may have been present in the common ancestor of both groups.
In other words, the ability to learn and imitate sounds may be evidence of common descent.
Not only is there no sign at all that the conversion of leading biologists to creationism's childish fairy tale in place of the scientific Theory of Evolution, that creationist cult leaders have been assuring their dupes is imminent - and has been for the last 50 years or so - it's as though they've never even heard of it. They still keep finding evidence of events that happened ten of thousand, even tens of millions of years before the Universe existed, according to the ludicrous creation myths they are supposedly about to adopt. And those events are frequently evidence of evolution or recent human history.
Imagine a serious, grown-up scientist who has been through university, with so much contrary information at his or her fingertips believing that account of magic creation 10,000 years ago written by ignorant Bronze Age pastoralists yet belonging to the creation cult requires fools to believe such an absurdity.
About 9 months ago while on holidat near Bezier, France, we were driving to Carcassonnes when, about a mile apart, we saw two majestic eagles that neither of us recognised. I now know they were Bonelli's eagles, and I probably have the activities of early Homo sapiens about 40,000 years ago to thank for them being there.
A study led by scientists from the University of Granada (UGR), Spain, shows how the activities of early Homo sapiens in the Iberian Peninsula, 40,000 years before creationists think their god created a universe consisting of a small, flat planet with a dome over it in the Middle East, may well have facilitated the expansion of the range of Bonelli's Eagle, Aquila fasciata, north of the Mediterranean Basin.
This paper is enough to send a dedicated creationist disinformation specialist into intellectual summersaults. On the one hand, they hate the fact that dinosaurs lived so long ago and are evidence of life on earth tens and hundreds of millions of years ago, so they bend over backwards to prove they were around just a few thousand years ago, and then, horror of horrors, along come some clever scientists and show evidence that some dinosaurs even evolved into birds!
And now, courtesy of Palaeontologists at University College Cork (UCC) in Ireland , we have evidence of the transition from scales to feathers in pre-avian dinosaurs.
But it gets even worse! Creationists frauds have ben claiming for several years now that 'fossilised' soft dinosaur tissues prove they were just a few thousand years old because, despite the perfectly rational explanation of how 'soft' tissues can be preserved for many millions of years in the right circumstances, like the presence of iron, the evidence of this transition from scales to feathers would found in fossilised soft tissue!
So, a creationist disinformation specialist must now argue that fossilised dinosaur soft tissues don't exist, and when they do, they prove dinosaurs lived recently. One problem they face is that the fossilised skin isn't skin at all, or even the fibrous protein parts of skin; it has been entirely mineralised aa silicate, preserving only the morphology, including the surface patterning - which is where the evidence lies.
The University College Cork scientists have just published their findings, open access, in Nature Communications and in a UCC news release:
Ducks, like almost all taxonomic categories, are a nightmare for creationists because they aren't mentioned in the Bible so it's not possible to put them into their primitive 'kind' classification, other than saying they are some 'kind' of bird, or maybe a 'duck kind'. The problem is there are so many different families of duck and several different species within each family. Some of them look very different to other ducks and have clearly evolved unique characteristics such as the long, serrated beak of the fish-eating mergansers, which places them in a different clade to the dabbling diving and torrent ducks.
By any definition then, evolving from a basic 'duck' into a merganser is the evolution of a new taxon, or 'macro-evolution' as creationists like to call it, while proclaiming it to be impossible because of some undefined magical process that intervenes to prevent it.
Which leaves creationists with nowhere to go but to claim mergansers were on the Ark, since they couldn't have evolved from a parent pair of 'ducks' at the abnormal warp-speed rate of evolution, that no-one noticed or thought to record, that creationists now claim must have happened in the few years since their favourite genocidal flood, that left no trace of itself.
But that's nothing compared to the genetic evidence that shows how, for example, the mergansers, evolved and spread geographically 18 million years before creationists believe there was a universe and again between 14 and 7 million years before creationists' god decided to create a small flat planet with a dome over it in the Middle East, 10,000 years ago, that creationists still believe accurately describes all that there is.
First, a little AI information about mergansers:
Tell me all about mergansers, their distribution and evolutionary origins, please. Mergansers are a group of ducks belonging to the genus Mergus, which is part of the family Anatidae. They are known for their distinctive serrated bills, which are well-adapted for catching fish, their primary diet. Here’s a detailed overview of mergansers, including their distribution, characteristics, and evolutionary background.
Characteristics
Mergansers are medium to large-sized ducks with slender bodies and long, pointed bills. Their bills are equipped with saw-like edges that help them grasp slippery fish. There are several species within the Mergus genus, including:
Common Merganser (Mergus merganser): Also known as the goosander, this species has a widespread distribution across North America, Europe, and Asia.
Red-breasted Merganser (Mergus serrator): Found in North America, Europe, and Asia, this species prefers coastal and large inland waters.
Hooded Merganser (Lophodytes cucullatus): Native to North America, it is smaller than other mergansers and has a distinctive fan-shaped crest.
Brazilian Merganser (Mergus octosetaceus): One of the rarest mergansers, it is found in central Brazil and is critically endangered.
Scaly-sided Merganser (Mergus squamatus): This species inhabits parts of East Asia and is also considered endangered.
Distribution
Mergansers have a wide distribution, with different species occupying various regions around the globe:
Common Merganser: Breeds in forested regions near lakes and rivers across northern North America, Europe, and Asia. In winter, they migrate to more temperate areas.
Red-breasted Merganser: Found in boreal and temperate regions across the Northern Hemisphere. They often winter in coastal waters, estuaries, and large inland lakes.
Hooded Merganser: Prefers forested wetlands, rivers, and ponds in North America. They are non-migratory in some parts of their range but move to ice-free waters in winter.
Brazilian Merganser: Restricted to central Brazil, particularly in the Serra da Canastra region. Their habitat includes clear, fast-flowing rivers.
Scaly-sided Merganser: Breeds in forested rivers of northeast China and the Russian Far East. They migrate to southern China, Korea, and Japan for winter.
Evolution
Mergansers belong to the Anatidae family, which includes ducks, geese, and swans. The evolution of mergansers is part of the broader adaptive radiation of the Anatidae, which diversified to exploit a variety of ecological niches. The serrated bills of mergansers are a specialized adaptation for piscivory (fish-eating), differentiating them from other ducks.
Evolutionary Background
Ancestral Origins: The Anatidae family likely originated in the late Cretaceous to early Paleogene periods. Early diversification allowed these birds to adapt to various ecological roles, including herbivory, omnivory, and piscivory.
Adaptive Radiation: The diversification of Mergus species is an example of adaptive radiation, where different species evolved to occupy different ecological niches, particularly in terms of habitat preference and diet specialization.
Morphological Adaptations: The distinctive serrated bills of mergansers are a key evolutionary trait that sets them apart from other ducks. This adaptation is crucial for their fish-based diet.
Conservation Status
Several species of mergansers are of conservation concern:
Brazilian Merganser: Critically endangered, with an estimated population of fewer than 250 individuals in the wild. Habitat destruction and water pollution are major threats.
Scaly-sided Merganser: Endangered, with threats including habitat loss due to logging and river damming, as well as pollution and human disturbance.
Conclusion
Mergansers are a fascinating group of ducks with specialized adaptations that enable them to thrive as piscivores in a variety of aquatic habitats. Their wide distribution and evolutionary history reflect the dynamic processes of diversification and adaptation in the Anatidae family. Conservation efforts are crucial for the survival of the endangered species within this group, highlighting the need for habitat protection and restoration.
The evidence of when the now extinct New Zealand merganser got to New Zealand and how it is related to other mergansers is the subject of an article in The Conversation by Nic Rawlence, Senior Lecturer in Ancient DNA, and Alexander Verry, Researcher, both of the University of Otago, New Zealand. Their article is reprinted here under a Creative Commons license, reformatted for stylistic consistency:
Ancient DNA from an extinct native duck reveals how far birds flew to make New Zealand home
Auckland Island merganser. Artistic reconstruction by J. G. Keulemans from Bullers Birds of New Zealand (1888)
Ask a bird lover if they have heard of the extinct giant moa or its ancient predator, Haast’s eagle, and the answer will likely be yes. The same can’t be said of New Zealand’s extinct, but equally unique, mergansers – a group of fish-eating ducks with a serrated bill.
The only southern hemisphere representatives of this group are the critically endangered Brazilian merganser and those from the New Zealand region, which are now extinct.
Unlike some of New Zealand’s other extinct birds, the biological heritage of our enigmatic mergansers is shrouded in mystery. But our new research on the extinct Auckland Island merganser is changing the way we think about the origins of New Zealand’s birds. Did the ancestors of the merganser come from South America or the northern hemisphere – and when did they arrive?
Mergansers are relatively common in the northern hemisphere but were limited to Brazil and the New Zealand region in the southern hemisphere.
Author provided
Lost to humans and pests
Mergansers were spread across the three main islands of New Zealand at the time of Polynesian arrival in the 13th century, as well as the Auckland Islands to the south and the Chatham Islands to the east.
Over-hunting, habitat destruction, and predation from the Pacific rat and Polynesian dog resulted in the extinction of mergansers on the New Zealand mainland and the Chatham Islands. By the time Europeans arrived in the 17th century, mergansers were restricted to an isolated population on the sub-Antarctic Auckland Islands.
European discovery of the Auckland Islands in 1806 led to a formal description of the Auckland Island merganser in 1841. However, European discovery brought new predators like pigs and cats.
Mergansers were also sought after as specimens for the museum trade. The last known Auckland Island merganser was shot and collected in 1902, a mere 61 years after its discovery.
Auckland Island Merganser, Mergus australis, collected June 1902, Auckland Islands, New Zealand.
Only recently have merganser bones from the Chatham Islands been described as a distinct species. The distinction of the Chatham Island merganser hints at greater merganser diversity in the New Zealand region than previously thought. It is possible the merganser bones found on mainland New Zealand may be another species, but only ongoing research will be able to confirm this.
From the northern hemisphere to NZ
The extinction of mergansers from the New Zealand region has meant their evolutionary history has remained a mystery. Did their ancestors, and those of the Brazilian merganser, arrive via independent colonisation events from the northern hemisphere? Or was there a single push into the southern hemisphere, followed by subsequent divergence events?
To find out more, we sequenced ancient DNA from an Auckland Islands merganser and a Brazilian merganser. This allowed us to reconstruct the evolutionary history of the wider group.
We found mergansers originated in the northern hemisphere, diverging from their closest relatives some 18 million years ago, before rapidly evolving into several different species between 14 and seven million years ago.
The mergansers from the New Zealand region are most closely related to the northern hemisphere common merganser. Their ancestors arrived here at least seven million years ago in a separate colonisation event to the one that gave rise to the Brazilian merganser.
Further genetic research is currently underway. The goal is to reconstruct the evolutionary history of mergansers within the New Zealand region.
The global origins of New Zealand’s birds
Many New Zealanders believe the country’s native birds originate from Australia. Increasingly though, genetic and palaeontological research shows a number of our feathered friends hail from further afield.
The long journey of blue-eyed shags started in South America, with the birds island hopping via Antarctica and the sub-Antarctic islands to New Zealand. Mergansers arriving from the northern hemisphere add another piece to the puzzle.
It is possible that fossils of extinct mergansers (and other birds with distant geographic origins) will be discovered as palaeontologists increasingly focus on previously neglected and newly discovered southern hemisphere fossil deposits.
Only then, combined with the power of ancient DNA, will we be able to fully understand how New Zealand’s dynamic geological, climatic and human history has influenced the colonisation and diversification of birds on this isolated South Pacific archipelago. Nic Rawlence, Senior Lecturer in Ancient DNA, University of Otago and Alexander Verry, Researcher, Department of Zoology, University of Otago
Abstract
Mergansers are riverine and coastal piscivorous ducks that are widespread throughout North America and Eurasia but uncommon in the Southern Hemisphere. One species occurs in South America and at least two extinct species are known from New Zealand. It has been proposed that these Southern Hemisphere merganser lineages were founded by at least two independent dispersal events from the Northern Hemisphere. However, some morphological and behavioural evidence suggests that Southern Hemisphere mergansers may form a monophyletic clade that descended from only a single dispersal event from the Northern Hemisphere. For example, Southern Hemisphere mergansers share several characteristics that differ from Northern Hemisphere mergansers (e.g. non-migratory vs. migratory, sexual monochromatism vs. sexual dichromatism, long vs. short pair bonds). We sequenced complete mitogenomes from the Brazilian merganser and an extinct merganser from New Zealand—the Auckland Island merganser. Our results show that the Brazilian and Auckland Island mergansers are not sister-taxa, and probably descend from two separate colonization events from the Northern Hemisphere at least 7 Mya. Nuclear (palaeo)genomic data may help to further resolve the relationship between living and extinct mergansers, including merganser fossils from New Zealand that have not been subjected to palaeogenetic analysis.
INTRODUCTION
Mergansers (Mergus spp.) are a group of riverine and seasonally coastal fish-eating ducks that have a widespread Northern Hemisphere distribution but are uncommon in the Southern Hemisphere (Kear 2005, Williams et al. 2012, 2014) (Fig. 1). They are characterized by a serrated bill, and include the endangered scaly-sided merganser (M. squamatus Gould 1864) from north-east Asia; the common merganser (M. merganser Linnaeus 1758), and the red-breasted merganser (M. serrator Linnaeus 1758), which have widespread Northern Hemisphere distributions; the critically endangered Brazilian merganser (M. octosetaceus Vieillot 1817); and two currently recognized extinct species from the New Zealand region—M. australis Hombron and Jacquinot 1841 and M. milleneri Williams and Tennyson 2014 from the Auckland and Chatham Islands, respectively. While the hooded merganser Lophodytes cucullatus (Linnaeus 1758), previously M. cucullatus, from North America has a serrated bill, it is not considered a ‘true’ merganser (e.g. Buckner et al. 2018, Lavretsky et al. 2021). The taxonomic relationship of the smew Mergellus albellus (Linnaeus 1758) from Eurasia is currently unresolved; it is sometimes suggested to be more closely related to Mergus and Lophodytes or to goldeneyes (Bucephala spp.) (Livezey 1995, Buckner et al. 2018, Lavretsky et al. 2021).
Figure 1.
Schematic of the breeding distributions of Mergus spp. The New Zealand (NZ) lineage encompasses the Auckland Island merganser (465 km south of NZ) and Chatham Island merganser (785 km east of NZ), as well as Mergus spp. from mainland NZ. Breeding distributions are based off the Cornell Lab of Ornithology Birds of the World website.
The now extinct Auckland Island merganser M. australis (or miuweka) (Fig. 2) was formally described in 1841, based on a specimen collected on the sub-Antarctic Auckland Islands, 465 km south of mainland New Zealand. Rare Late Holocene-aged merganser bones have been found in coastal sand dune deposits (including Māori middens) on New Zealand’s three main islands (Stewart, North, and South), and the Auckland and Chatham Islands (Tennyson and Martinson 2007, Williams et al. 2014, Tennyson 2020). Bones from the latter were recently described as a distinct species M. milleneri, which was smaller than the nominate M. australis, with a shorter skull, relatively shorter premaxilla, smaller sternum and keel, relatively shorter wing bones, and a narrower pelvis (Williams et al. 2014). The taxonomic status of merganser bones from mainland New Zealand is unresolved (i.e. cannot be assigned to either M. australis or M. milleneri), and are currently recognized as Mergus spp. (Birds New Zealand Checklist Committee 2022).
Figure 2.
In the Southern Hemisphere, mergansers are only known from the New Zealand region and South America, represented here by the Auckland Island merganser. A, artistic reconstruction by J.G. Keulemans from Buller (1888); B, historical museum skin (Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa OR.001357); C, the Brazilian merganser (photo by Savio Freire Bruno CC BY-SA 3.0).
Mergansers in the New Zealand region are mainly thought to have occupied a riverine and seasonally coastal habitat (e.g. sheltered bays during winter; Kear 2005, Williams et al. 2012, 2014). It is likely that they mainly nested in tree cavities, but also caves in some instances, as the remains of adults, chicks, and eggs have been found within a cave on the Chatham Islands (Williams et al. 2014). By the 17th century, mergansers had been extirpated from the Chatham Islands and mainland New Zealand, and survived only on the Auckland Islands. A combination of subsistence hunting, and predation from the Pacific rat (Rattus exulans) and Polynesian dog (Canis familiaris), probably led to the extinction of mergansers across most of their prehistoric range (Tennyson and Martinson 2007, Greig and Rawlence 2021.1). On the Auckland Islands, predation from introduced pigs (Sus scrofa) and cats (Felis catus), and collecting for the museum trade, resulted in their extinction—indeed the last known Auckland Island merganser specimen was shot and collected in January 1902 (Williams 2012.1).
The only extant merganser in the Southern Hemisphere—the critically endangered Brazilian merganser (Fig. 2)—is one of the rarest birds in the world, comprising only 250 wild individuals. It is split across three remnant populations in Brazil, but once had a more widespread historical distribution encompassing Argentina and Paraguay (Vilaca et al. 2012.2, Maia et al. 2020.1). The Brazilian merganser has undergone a significant population bottleneck, yet different remnant populations can still be genetically identified (Maia et al. 2020.1). Like mergansers from the New Zealand region, the Brazilian merganser occupies riverine habitats, and often nests in tree cavities or rock crevasses (Vilaca et al. 2012.2, Maia et al. 2020.1).
It has been proposed that the Southern Hemisphere mergansers were founded by independent dispersal events to the New Zealand region and South America from the Northern Hemisphere (e.g. Livezey 1995). Based on behavioural characteristics, Johnsgard (1961) tentatively assigned the Brazilian merganser as sister-species to a clade comprising the other Mergus species, with the Auckland Island merganser as the sister-species of the common merganser and scaly-sided merganser. In contrast, using morphological characters, Livezey (1989, 1995) assigned the Auckland Island merganser, then Brazilian merganser, as successive sister-species to all other Mergus species, though with weak to moderate bootstrap support. Using mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) sequences, Buckner et al. (2018) suggested the Brazilian merganser was the sister-species to the scaly-sided merganser, albeit with weak support. However, some evidence suggests that Southern Hemisphere mergansers may be closely related to one another, potentially even sister-species, as they share several behavioural (e.g. non-migratory and long pair bonds) and morphological (e.g. sexually monochromatic) characteristics, in contrast to their Northern Hemisphere congeners (e.g. migratory, short pair bonds, and sexual dichromatism; Livezey 1995). In addition, recent genetic studies of other extinct Southern Hemisphere avian species have also revealed unexpected evolutionary connections between birds from New Zealand, South America, and Africa (e.g. Mitchell et al. 2014.1a, 2014.2b, Boast et al. 2019, Rawlence et al. 2022.1, Verry et al. 2022.2a). As such, the phylogenetic relationships of the Southern Hemisphere mergansers, when their ancestors arrived in the region, and from where, remain unresolved.
In this study, the first genetic study of a New Zealand Mergus species, we sequenced mitochondrial genomes (mitogenomes) from historical museum specimens from the Auckland Island merganser and Brazilian merganser, and analysed them within a phylogenetic framework of Mergini mitogenomes (Liu et al. 2012.3, Lavretsky et al. 2021). These data were used to determine the phylogenetic relationships and divergence dates within mergansers.
Creationists needn't be too embarrassed by these facts about the distribution and evolution of mergansers, after all, the simple Bronze Age Canaanites who made up the origin myths to fill the gaps in their knowledge and understanding, could have known nothing of them, since they are largely absent from the Middle East, nor of southern hemisphere land masses such as South America, Australia and New Zealand when they didn't even realise there is a southern hemisphere, or of the ducks and their families.
And, of course, they knew nothing about the history of Earth and the life on it, so how could they be expected to have known about the evolutionary history and geographic distribution of these ducks? With their long, serrated beaks and fish diet, they probably wouldn't have recognised mergansers as a type of duck even.
All they had to draw on was their limited knowledge of the small scrap of the globe they inhabited, which is why they got almost everything they described so hopelessly wrong. The lesson from Genesis is just how badly you do when you know little and depend on guesswork from the point of view of someone with the knowledge understanding of a pre-school toddler of today.
It's a fundamental mantra of creationism that you'll see chanted over and over again as though it’s a proof that their god must exist, "You can't get order from chaos". It’s as fundamental, and as mindless, as the mantra, "You can't get life from non-life".
Both of them ignore the evidence and neither of them can be explained any more so than a parrot can explain its squawks.
And now a Tokyo University team has demonstrated that order can indeed emerge from chaos at different levels from the quantum to the macro level of flocks of birds, when there is a force acting between the particles to make it what they term an 'active matter'. They explain their findings in a highly technical, mathematical paper, the maths of which is quite incomprehensible to me, in the journal, Physical Review Research. The basic requirements for 'active matter' are that the particles (agents) are moving and that there is repulsion between them. In the case of a flock of birds, the repulsion is in the form of maintaining a distance between the individuals.
The researchers have explained their findings in a news release from Tokyo University:
This article caught my eye because it concerns the birds in a wood which is local to me - Wytham Wood, near Oxford, to which I have licensed access. This is reputedly the most intensively studied area of woodland in the world, belonging, as it does, to Oxford University.
Wytham Woods form an iconic location that has been the subject of continuous ecological research programmes, many dating back to the 1940s. The estate has been owned and maintained by the University of Oxford since 1942. The Woods are often quoted as being one of the most researched pieces of woodland in the world, and their 1000 acres are designated as a Site of Special Scientific Interest.
The wooded parts of the Wytham Estate comprise ancient semi-natural woodland (dating to the last Ice Age), secondary woodland (dating to the seventeenth century), and modern plantations (1950s and 60s). The fourth key habitat is the limestone grassland found at the top of the hill. Other smaller habitats include a valley-side mire and a series of ponds.
The site is exceptionally rich in flora and fauna, with over 500 species of plants, a wealth of woodland habitats, and 800 species of butterflies and moths.
Through intensive observation over successive years, researchers are able to measure changes in behaviour of species such as the Great Tit, Parus major with some of the best examples of observational biology in the form of research papers. For example, a few years ago a team of researchers showed that the British race of Great tits were diverging from their European relatives with changes in the beaks probably reflecting the fact that we in Britain provide feeding stations for birds to sustain them through the winter much more frequently than other Europeans, so the British Great tits are evolving so they can get the food in the bird feeders in British gardens.
In the following article, ecologist, David López Idiáquez, a Postdoctoral Research Associate in Behavioural and Evolutionary Ecology, University of Oxford, explains how their research is measuring how Great tits are responding to climate change. His article is reprinted here from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license, reformatted for stylistic consistency, with photographs from Internet sources:
The results of a ten-year study, published today in Nature will come as a huge disappointment for any creationists who find the courage to read it (and who have the ability to understand what they're reading - which for creationists is probably asking too much.
Those still under the delusion that mainstream biologists are abandoning the TOE in favour of creationism with its magic and a suppositional supernatural entity, will be especially disappointed. Not only does it show birds have been around for very much longer than creationists believe the universe has been it also shows that the team of scientists are firmly committed to the Theory of Evolution as the only scientific explanation for biodiversity.
Two of the biologists who co-authored the paper along with a large international team of biologists, Jacqueline Nguyen, Scientific Officer in Ornithology, Australian Museum, and ARC DECRA Fellow, Flinders University and Simon Ho, Professor of Molecular Evolution, School of Life and Environmental Sciences, University of Sydney, have described their findings in an article in The Conversation. Their article is reprinted here under a Creative Commons license, reformatted for stylistic consistency:
It seems every week is a bad week for creationists, yet the wackadoodle cult staggers on, albeit with dwindling numbers, managing as always to ignore anything that shows their childish superstition to be wrong.
On top of the recently-reported predatory marine lizard, from 66 million years ago, we now have the earliest bird without the teeth of its enantiornithine ancestors. The enantiornithines were a diverse class of avian dinosaurs that went extinct 66 million years ago following the meteor impact that killed most of the dinosaurs. Only the ornithuromorphs survived, for reasons not completely understood, and they gave rise to all modern birds.
Classical (Darwinian) evolution theory explains diversification of one species into several by hypothesising that an advantageous trait in any given environment will convey a fitness advantage in that environment, so carriers of that trait will have more descendants than non-carriers. As the environment varies so the advantageous traits with vary.
Although the logic of that is indisputable, formal proof of it in terms of observing it leading to diversification is hard to come by for several reasons, not the least of which is that speciation can only really be identified retrospectively when a large enough population exists to be able to say this is a new species, and not just a variant. There was no way to predict that a given individual or small population would actually become a new species so no reason to watch what happened. I explained this some time ago in a blog post about monkey diversification, subsequently confirmed by observation.
So, to the consternation of creationists, an international group of biologists led by McGill University have set about providing the evidence to validate the hypothesis, and, to make matters worse for creationists, they did it using the Galápagos finch, also known as Darwin's finch, that gave Charles Darwin the idea of evolution by natural selection as the explanation for biodiversity. So, this work not only validates basic Darwinian theory but also validates Darwin's choice of an example of it.
The biologists’ findings, based on 17 years of observations, are published open access in Evolution and are explained in a McGill University press release:
A great deal is understood about how the many different varieties of domestic pigeon were produced ever since Charles Darwin used them to illustrate the role of selection in evolution. In this case, selection is human selection rather than natural selection, although the difference is a matter of semantics if you regard human selective breeders as part of the domestic pigeon's environment.
Incidentally, creationists should note that Darwin never claimed evolution always resulted in new species. As he showed with his selective breeding examples, it produced new varieties too. Some of these have become so far removed from their wild ancestors that they rank as subspecies, like the domestic pigeon, Columba livia domestica
Although the radiation of domestic varieties is now well understood, the wild ancestors, the rock doves, have received far less attention until now. Now a paper by a team led by Germán Hernández-Alonso of the Center for Evolutionary Hologenomics, The Globe Institute, University of Copenhagen, Copenhagen, Denmark, redresses that discrepancy by analysing the entire genomes of 65 historical rock doves that represent all currently recognized subspecies and span the species’ original geographic distribution. 3 of these specimens were from Charles Darwin's collection.
This works shows that rock doves have diversified into a number of subspecies across their range, stemming from a subspecies now restricted to a small coastal strip of Northwest Africa, C. livia gymnocyclus. One of these subspecies received a substantial ingression of genes from a related species, C. rupestris after it split from the West African population but before it became domesticated. The result is that C. livia gymnocyclus should now probably rank as a species in its own right, C. gymnocyclus.
First a little about the evolution of domestic pigeons:
Bird footprints in Cretaceous rocks on Australia's South Coast
One of the Early Cretaceous bird tracks that clearly shows all four toes, including the rear toe, or hallux. The track is nearly 10 centimeters wide and is similar in size and form to tracks made by modern-day green herons.
Some more of that long history of 'pre-Creation' life on Earth was revealed a couple of days ago when an international team of researchers led by Professor Anthony Martin, of Emory University’s Department of Environmental Sciences, and including researchers from Monash University and the Museums Victoria Research Institute in Australia; the Benemérita Normal School of Coahuila in Mexico; and the Smithsonian Institution, published their discovery of 27 bird tracks which vary in form and size in Early Cretaceous rocks. The tracks range from seven to fourteen centimetres wide and resemble those of modern shore birds such as small herons, waders and oystercatchers.
They were found in the Wonthaggi Formation south of Melbourne. The rocky coastal strata mark where the ancient supercontinent Gondwana began to break up around 100 million years ago when Australia separated from Antarctica and are the oldest bird tracks so far found.
At the time, in the rift valley that was opening up between Australia and what was to become Antarctica, the valley would have contained rivers which were subject to drastic seasonal changes between very cold, winters and several months of perpetual darkness and relatively warm summers when the river flood plain would have been home to migrant waders.
The tracks were made in successive stratigraphic layers which suggests seasonal flooding followed by gentle covering with silt or sand which preserved the footprints.
The Wonthaggi Formation is famous for its variety of polar dinosaur bones, although bird-fossil finds are extremely rare. The Cretaceous strata of the formation has yielded only one tiny bird bone — a wishbone — and a few feathers.
Birds have such thin and tiny bones. Think of the likelihood of a sparrow being preserved in the geologic record as opposed to an elephant.
Flamingoes and geese High skeletal complexity, low species diversity
The creation cult has fooled its members into believing that evolution, as defined by science, always involves increasing complexity. They do this because it's easier then to argue that either greater complexity implies intelligent design because systems become 'irreducibly complex' or because it implies that science is claiming that new structures can arise by evolution which contravenes some half-baked notion about new information contravening the second law of thermodynamics by equating 'information' to energy in a closed system.
If that claim of increasing complexity leading to increased structures were true, we would expect it to always lead to increased biodiversity, which is exactly what we often see, but the truth is not as black and white as creationist frauds need to present it to their simplistic dupes.
As a new study by researchers at the Milner Centre for Evolution at the University of Bath have shown, in birds, evolution often results in less diversity and greater specialisation, as species adapt to new niche opportunities or environmental change. Their findings are published, open access, in Nature Communications.
As the press release from Bath University explains:
If you're going to perpetuate your genes through time, you need to arrange things so the next generation doesn't get eaten, because that ends your gene line. To do that, you need to ensure you arrange things so any potential predator has difficulty finding the next generation, at least before they've managed to breed.
I appreciate these concepts are difficult for creationists to grasp, but a paper out today shows the importance of catering for the perception of potential prey on your offspring, if you want then to survive and breed.
It concerns the siting of lapwing nests and eggs.
The northern lapwing, Vanellus vanellus, green plover or peewit (from their call), is a ground-nesting bird, which, until about 40 years ago was common in my part of Oxfordshire, UK. They formed vast flocks in the Autumn that would put on impressive displays as twilight approached, as they twisted and turned in flight (hence their name, lapwing) giving the flock a twinkling appearance as they exposed their white underwings, then twisted to hide them, confusing any potential predator such as peregrine falcons. Since then, they have been in rapid decline, probably due to habitat destruction and change in agricultural land management, and these vast flocks are no more.
In an example of how the environment, and in this case probably the availability of different food items, can cause changes on which natural selection can act, a study by an international team or reserchers led by Pablo Salmón of Lund University, Sweden, has shown that great tits, Parus major living in an urban environment have paler breasts than those living in a forest environment.
Although this is probably not an evolutionary change, i.e., a change in the frequency of alleles in the population gene pools, as the cause is probably dietary difference, it illustrates how an environmental change can produce changes in features on which natural selection can act to bring about true evolutionary changes, and so begin the process of allopatric speciation.
Of course, there will be creationists who will misrepresent the scientific fact of evolution, either deliberately, or mendaciously in order to mislead others, who will dismiss this as "not evolution", not for the reason given above but because "they're still great tits/still birds" and haven't grown a new structure or turned into an unrelated taxon.
The research is explained in a Lund University press release:
Just as Darwin's finch’s beaks did, albatross’ beaks have diversified as the different species diversified from a common ancestor, and the driving force is again the food they eat.
This is the finding of three biologists, Josh Tyler, a Postgraduate Research Student in the Department of Life Sciences, University of Bath, UK, Jane Younger, Lecturer, Southern Ocean Vertebrate Ecology, University of Tasmania, Australia and David Hocking, Adjunct Research Associate, Monash University, Australia.
And of course, it's bad news for creationists who have been fooled into thinking biologists are abandoning the Theory of Evolution in favour of their childish superstition with its belief in magic and supernatural deities.
The scientists have published their findings, open access in the journal Royal Society Open Science and have written about their research in The Conversation.
Their article is reprinted here under a Creative Commons licence, reformatted for stylistic consistency:
A transient change in expression of one gene (Shh) can produce a cascade of developmental events leading to the formation of feathers instead of scales
Lurk a while in any Evolution vs Creationism group in the social media and you can guarantee a creationist will try to argue that a given example of evolution which they have probably just demanded be provided, and which conforms to the scientific definition of evolution - any change in allele frequency over time - is not real evolution because it wasn't 'macro-evolution' which they will define as a change in 'kind' or the evolution of a new species, even the evolution of new structures - whichever definition they think stands the best chance of winning.
I've been at this for long enough to remember how, when the early internet 'bulletin boards' on CompuServe had morphed into thriving debate 'forums', creationists would simply argue that there was no such thing as evolution, full stop! It simply never happened; not in the slightest. No Way! Everything was created exactly as it is today during 'Creation Week' a few thousand years ago! Any evidence to the contrary was a forgery by evil scientists or had been planted by Satan.
Then, in the face of so much evidence, particularly the very large number of living and extinct species and the impossibility of them all being collected together in a few days, herded onto a wooden boat and surviving for a year, they began to concede that there had indeed been evolution, but only limited to evolution withing species, and evolution moreover at a phenomenal rate, far exceeding anthing proposed by biologists, so as to produce the millions of species from a few 'kinds' that survived the genocidal flood their putative creator had inflicted on its creation, just a few thousand years ago.
What creationists are doing is moving the goal-posts by redefining a well-understood scientific term to place it beyond what science actually claims, so they can demand evidence of something that no evolutionary biologist ever claimed - that a single mutation produced a new species or that one species gave birth to another in a single event, ignoring the fact that evolutionary biologists understand that evolution is normally a slow process which takes place in the species gene pool, with the instances of new species arising by, for example, hybridization, being rare exceptions, but nevertheless, natural processes, not requiring supernatural entities to explain.
So, ask a creationist now wedded to the notion that real evolution needs to be 'macro-evolution' to define a reptile 'kind' and a bird 'kind' and they will normally define a reptile 'kind' as having scales and a bird 'kind' as having feathers, ignoring the fact that paleontologists have discovered several feathered dinosaurs (reptiles).
Now, present a creationist with an example such as the one in this research paper, where changes to a small number of genes resulted in what they would define as 'macro-evolution', i.e., a change in 'kind' because that change in chickens results in them growing feathers where they normally grow scales, showing the feathers are simply evolved scales.
South Polar skua, Stercorarius maccormicki, with nest
According to a survey published, open access, yesterday in the Cell Press journal, Current Biology almost the entire breeding population of three seabirds failed to breed on important breeding grounds in Antarctica, due to unseasonably high snowfall in the Antarctic 'Summer' (December 2020-January 2022) when breeding normally takes place. The unusual weather is almost certainly due to man-made climate change.
The researchers found not a single nest of the South Polar skua, and only a handful of the nests of the Antarctic petrel, Thalassoica antarctica, and Snow petrel, Pagodroma nivea, on the main breeding ground of Dronning Maud Land (Queen Maud Land) in the Norwegian-administered sector of Antarctica.
According to Creationist superstition, humans are specially created as a different form of life from the rest of creation and so are the only species capable of experiencing 'higher' emotions such as love and friendship, or of being able to empathise with other members of the same species. This superstition is vigorously maintained, probably because the cult leaders understand that it makes their dupes feel special enough, so they stick with the cult and reject any idea which seems to reduce their over-inflated sense of self-importance.
The superstition is maintained despite the growing number of examples of other species having these 'human' emotions, such as this example of flamingos forming friendship and mutual support groups depending on their personality. Flamingos with similar personalities prefer to associate together and will even defend one another if attacked by a member of another group.
Flamingos are highly gregarious and can be seen in groups ranging from a half dozen to many thousands. I have seen small flocks of maybe a dozen in Andalucia, Spain and in Kuwait, larger flocks of several thousand in the Camargue, France and probably tens of thousands on the Limasol Salt Lake, Akrotiri, Cyprus.
The research in question was carried out on a captive population of Caribbean flamingos at the Wildfowl & Wetlands Trust, Slimbridge, Gloucestershire, UK, by two scientists from Exeter University.
The research is explained in an Exeter University news release:
