Slides from the presentation "Phylogeny of extant and fossil Procellariiformes (Aves), based on morphological characters (PhD thesis in progress)", by Alejandra Piro. The Literature cited can be found in: https://es.slideshare.net/secret/4kgEQ5VH6xSYvw

1. Phylogeny of extant and fossil
Procellariiformes (Aves), based
on morphological characters
(PhD thesis in progress)
Alejandra Piro *1,2
1 PhD student, CONICET scholarship
2 División Paleontología Vertebrados, Museo de La Plata, Facultad
de Ciencias Naturales y Museo, Universidad Nacional de La Plata
apiro@fcnym.unlp.edu.ar

2. Introduction
The Procellariiformes (albatross and
petrels) are seabirds inhabiting all the
oceans of the world (1,2). Their fossil
record begins in the Cretaceous, but
most certainly in the Eocene (3, 4).
These birds are grouped in four extant
families: Procellariidae, Diomedeidae,
Hydrobatidae and Oceanitidae (5); plus
the extinct Diomedeoididae (6).
Previous phylogenies are controversial,
based mostly in molecular data and small
number of species which are not a real
representation of all the families and
the known diversity (7-21).
The present analysis made on a
preliminary data matrix still under
construction was made in the context of
a doctoral study. The main goal of this
contribution is the analysis of the
relationships among albatross and
petrels, including extant and South
American and Antarctic extinct
representatives.

3. Procellariidae Macronectes giganteus, Pterodroma incerta,
Pt. lessonii, Procellaria aequinoctialis;
Ardenna gravis, A. grisea, Calonectris
diomedea, Calonectris edwardsii, Daption
capense, Puffinus puffinus, Thalassoica
antarctica, Fulmarus glacialoides,
Pagodroma nivea
Diomedeidae Thalassarche melanophris, T. chrysostoma
Hydrobatidae
Fregetta tropica
Oceanitidae
Oceanites oceanicus
Fossil
specimens
Argyrodytes microtarsus (Argentina)
Indeterminate gen. and sp. MLP-10-XII-11-1
(Antarctica)
Sphenisciformes Spheniscus magellanicus
• Skeletons and museum skins
examined here are located in
the Museo de La Plata, Museo
Argentino de Ciencias
Naturales, and Fundación
Azara (Argentina), and Museo
Nacional de Historia Natural
(Uruguay).
• 20 species (18 extant + 2
fossils) were examined and
483 osteological, modified
from 6,11,16,20,22, and new;
and 17 new integumentary
characters were scored using
Mesquite (23).
• The analysis was made with
TNT (24) using parsimony,
Traditional search with 100
repls. and 1000 tres and TBR
branch swapping, strict
consensus, and implied
weightings. The characters
were treated as non-additive
Materials & Methods

4. Results
The analysis resulted in 7 trees, length
1187 steps, strict consensus length 1516
(* are fossils)
The implied weightings tree (K=3) resulted
in a single tree (length 1189 steps)
Sphenisciformes
Diomedeidae
Oceanitidae
Hydrobatidae
Procellariidae
Fossils

5. Discussion & Conclusion
● The strict consensus tree (SCT) of the order Procellariiformes is highly polytomic.
● No synapomorphies separate Procellariiformes from Sphenisciformes in both analysis (SCT
and IWT).
● As expected, Hydrobatidae and Oceanitidae are nested.
● The Diomedeidae are recovered as monophyletic in the IWT but as polyphyletic groups in
SCT; the Procellariidae resulted paraphyletic in both analyses.
● In the IWT, MLP-10-XII-11-1 is related to Daption capense, and Argyrodytes microtarsus
is recovered in a basal position for Procellariiformes.
These results are still preliminary and point the new directions to follow: the
incorporation of other albatross and petrels unscored yet, and the comparison with the
molecular results.
Literature cited
It can be viewed in this link: https://es.slideshare.net/secret/4kgEQ5VH6xSYvw