Une nouvelle étude bouleverse l’arbre phylogénétique des oiseaux

A fascinating study « A Phylogenomic Study of Birds Reveals Their Evolutionary History » de Shannon J. Hackett et al has been published in 2008 in the journal, Science: it examined 32 kilobases of aligned nuclear DNA sequences from 19 independent loci for 169 species, representing all major extant groups, and recovered a robust phylogeny from a genome-wide signal supported by multiple analytical methods.
This analysis effectively redraws avian phylogeny, or family tree, thus shaking up our current understanding of the early, or « deep », evolutionary relationships of birds. For example, one of the most surprising findings of this analysis is that parrots and songbirds are « sister groups » — each other’s closest relatives!
And here’s another surprise; falcons are the sister group to the parrots and songbirds. Further, the falcons (Falconidae) include the New World vultures — but they are not closely related to eagles, hawks and osprey, as previously thought…