Origin of avian genome size and structure in non-avian dinosaurs

Chris L. Organ (), Andrew M. Shedlock, Andrew Meade, Mark Pagel and Scott V. Edwards
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Chris L. Organ: Museum of Comparative Zoology, Harvard University, 26 Oxford Street, Cambridge, Massachusetts 02138, USA
Andrew M. Shedlock: Museum of Comparative Zoology, Harvard University, 26 Oxford Street, Cambridge, Massachusetts 02138, USA
Andrew Meade: School of Biological Sciences, University of Reading, Reading, RG6 6AJ, UK
Mark Pagel: School of Biological Sciences, University of Reading, Reading, RG6 6AJ, UK
Scott V. Edwards: Museum of Comparative Zoology, Harvard University, 26 Oxford Street, Cambridge, Massachusetts 02138, USA

Nature, 2007, vol. 446, issue 7132, 180-184

Abstract: Chicken and genome question One of the less well known factors associated with flight in vertebrates is a reduction of the size of the genome. Birds have remarkably small genomes compared with other vertebrates, and bats tend to have smaller genomes than do non-flying mammals. But does flight cause genome loss, or does genome loss predispose animals to take flight? The latter seems to be the case, to judge from an extensive analysis of bone cell volume and genome size in dinosaurs. Genome reduction can be traced deep into the lineage of saurischian dinosaurs — the dinosaur group of which the birds are the only surviving members — but not in ornithischian dinosaurs.

Date: 2007
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DOI: 10.1038/nature05621

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