Evidence for a single loss of mineralized teeth in the common avian ancestor
Open accessAbstract
Edentulism, the absence of teeth, has evolved convergently among vertebrates, including birds, turtles, and several lineages of mammals. Instead of teeth, modern birds (Neornithes) use a horny beak (rhamphotheca) and a muscular gizzard to acquire and process food. We performed comparative genomic analyses representing lineages of nearly all extant bird orders and recovered shared, inactivating mutations within genes expressed in both the enamel and dentin of teeth of other vertebrate species, indicating that the common ancestor of modern birds lacked mineralized teeth. We estimate that tooth loss, or at least the loss of enamel caps that provide the outer layer of mineralized teeth, occurred about 116 million years ago.
Integrity signals
Registry
Cites
Statistics
Claims the paper makes
Claims other papers make about this one
Each is checked against this paper’s own text: does it say what the citing paper says it does?
Case studies investigating the fate of selected genes have uncovered associations between gene losses and several mammalian phenotypes.
“Case studies investigating the fate of selected genes uncovered associations between gene losses and several mammalian phenotypes14–16.”
From A genomics approach reveals insights into the importance of gene losses for mammalian adaptations (2018) · cites this paper as [15]
The study identified previously known losses of the tooth-specific genes MMP20 and C4orf26 that are essential for enamel formation in four mammals that independently lost tooth enamel.
“As a proof of concept, we searched for genes that are lost in four mammals that independently lost tooth enamel (Fig. 5a) and identified previously known losses of the tooth-specific genes MMP20 and C4orf2615 that are essential for enamel formation (Fig. 5b, Supplementary Note 6, and Supplementary Table 6).”
From A genomics approach reveals insights into the importance of gene losses for mammalian adaptations (2018) · cites this paper as [15]
Cites
Impacts of the Cretaceous Terrestrial Revolution and KPg extinction on mammal diversification
Meredith, R. W., Janečka, J. E., Gatesy, J., Ryder, O. A., Fisher, C. A., Teeling, E. C., Goodbla, A., Eizirik, E., Simão, T. L. L., Stadler, T., et al. (2011) · Science · doi:10.1126/science.1211028 · Cited by 1,464 · see citing works
Self-citationLIVEZEY, B. C., & ZUSI, R. L. (2007) · Zoological Journal of the Linnean Society · doi:10.1111/j.1096-3642.2006.00293.x · Cited by 574 · see citing works
An Archaeopteryx-like theropod from China and the origin of Avialae
Xu, X., You, H., Du, K., & Han, F. (2011) · Nature · doi:10.1038/nature10288 · Cited by 314 · see citing works
Flagged first, then by citations
Cited by
Sorted by citations
A genomics approach reveals insights into the importance of gene losses for mammalian adaptations
Sharma, V., Hecker, N., Roscito, J. G., Foerster, L., Langer, B. E., & Hiller, M. (2018) · Nature Communications · doi:10.1038/s41467-018-03667-1 · Cited by 237 · see citing works
Bayesian Detection of Convergent Rate Changes of Conserved Noncoding Elements on Phylogenetic Trees
Hu, Z., Sackton, T. B., Edwards, S. V., & Liu, J. S. (2019) · Molecular Biology and Evolution · doi:10.1093/molbev/msz049 · Cited by 69 · see citing works
- Authors
- Meredith, R. W., Zhang, G., Gilbert, M. T. P., Jarvis, E. D., & Springer, M. S.
- Affiliations
- Montclair State University (US)
- BGI Group (China) (CN)
- University of Copenhagen (DK)
- Howard Hughes Medical Institute (US)
- University of California, Riverside (US)
- Corresponding author
- Meredith, Robert W.
- Springer, Mark S.
- Venue
- Science
- Published
- 2014-12-12
- Volume
- 346
- Issue
- 6215
- Pages
- 1254390-1254390
- ISSN
- 0036-8075 (ISSN-L)
- 1095-9203
- OpenAlex
- W1971037720
- Cited by
- 113
- References
- 3
- Citations by year
- 2026: 6 · 2025: 8 · 2024: 3 · 2023: 10 · 2022: 7 · 2021: 15 · 2020: 16 · 2019: 9 · 2018: 8 · 2017: 8 · 2016: 6 · 2015: 15 · 2014: 1
- FWCI
- 3.77
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- green
- hdl.handle.net
- Licence
- cc-by-nc-nd
- Locations
- Science (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- DukeSpace (Duke University) (submittedVersion, cc-by-nc-nd)
- eSpace (Curtin University) (submittedVersion)
- Research at the University of Copenhagen (University of Copenhagen) (submittedVersion)
- Funders
- Howard Hughes Medical Institute
- Topics
- Life Sciences › Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology › Molecular Biology › dental development and anomalies
- Physical Sciences › Earth and Planetary Sciences › Paleontology › Paleontology and Evolutionary Biology
- Physical Sciences › Earth and Planetary Sciences › Paleontology › Evolution and Paleontology Studies
- Keywords
- tooth loss, edentulism, Neornithes, enamel, dentin, convergent evolution, gene inactivation, comparative genomics, avian evolution, Cretaceous
- MeSH terms
- Alligators and Crocodiles, Animals, Birds, Dental Enamel, Dentin, Biological Evolution, Fossils, Mammals, Mutation, Phylogeny, Tooth, Vertebrates, Genome, Evolution, Molecular, Genomics
About these checks
Registry, retraction, Cites and statistics results are computed, not judged, with one exception: a printed reference that no index lists is read once by a model before it counts as a citation error. Claims are extracted by a model and kept only when their quote appears verbatim in the text; each cited source is then checked, with a model’s help, for whether it says what the claim relies on. Those verdicts can be wrong — read the claim’s quote and the cited source before relying on one.
Statistics and arithmetic are recomputed, not judged.
Confidence bands are shown only for fields calibrated on our annotated test set. None is calibrated yet, so no band is shown.
What counts as a claim ›How we measure confidence ›How we check this ›
Are you an author, or do you see a problem with this page? Request a review
