Ontogenetic niche shifts in the Mesozoic bird Confuciusornis sanctus

Abstract

Paleontological evidence reveals that the rapid growth characteristic of living birds evolved close to the origin of the crown-group Neornithes, as more stemward birds experienced protracted growth until becoming fully grown.¹ Research on Mesozoic confuciusornithids, the earliest divergence of fully beaked birds, has revealed a complex life cycle in which these birds experienced multiple growth phases.^2-4 Such a life-history pattern calls for the exploration of the role that ontogenetic niche shifts may have played in size-structuring confuciusornithid populations.^5,6 Here, by analyzing the skeletal morphometrics of a dense sample of fossil individuals of Confuciusornis sanctus (n = 171, all fledged), we show that the youngest individuals of this confuciusornithid species experienced a precocious burst of beak growth, probably facilitating access to novel food resources that helped them meet the high energetic demands of their initial growth spurt. Such an early burst of facial (i.e., snout) growth resembles that of young crocodilians.⁷ However, in these reptiles, facial growth slows down soon thereafter, and the matching of snout scaling between mid-sized and larger individuals instigates demographic competence and the dispersion of the former.⁸ In contrast, our results reveal that beak growth in C. sanctus continued steadily. We hypothesized that the protracted facial growth of older individuals led to ontogenetic niche shifts by dietary segregation among size classes within populations. Our study thus confirms that the life cycle of C. sanctus was notably different from that of modern birds, and it reveals that beak size allometry may have facilitated population cohesiveness between coinhabiting age classes.

Keywords: Mesozoic birds; beak; evolution; growth; life history; morphometrics; niche shifts; ontogeny; polymorphism.