Ontology highlight
ABSTRACT:
SUBMITTER: Zhang G
PROVIDER: S-EPMC4390078 | biostudies-literature | 2014 Dec
REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature
Science (New York, N.Y.) 20141211 6215
Birds are the most species-rich class of tetrapod vertebrates and have wide relevance across many research fields. We explored bird macroevolution using full genomes from 48 avian species representing all major extant clades. The avian genome is principally characterized by its constrained size, which predominantly arose because of lineage-specific erosion of repetitive elements, large segmental deletions, and gene loss. Avian genomes furthermore show a remarkably high degree of evolutionary sta ...[more]