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Beak and skull shapes of human commensal and non-commensal house sparrows Passer domesticus

The granivorous house sparrow Passer domesticus is thought to have developed its commensal relationship with humans with the rise of agriculture in the Middle East some 10,000 years ago, and to have expanded with the spread of agriculture in Eurasia during the last few thousand years. One subspecies...

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Main Authors: Riyahi, Sepand (Author) , Hammer, Øyvind (Author) , Arbabi, Tayebeh (Author) , Sánchez, Antonio (Author) , Roselaar, Cees S. (Author) , Aliabadian, Mansour (Author) , Sætre, Glenn-Peter (Author)
Format: Article (Journal)
Language:English
Published: 17 September 2013
In: BMC evolutionary biology
Year: 2013, Volume: 13, Pages: 1-8
ISSN:1471-2148
DOI:10.1186/1471-2148-13-200
Online Access:Verlag, lizenzpflichtig, Volltext: https://doi.org/10.1186/1471-2148-13-200
Verlag, lizenzpflichtig, Volltext: https://bmcecolevol.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/1471-2148-13-200
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Author Notes:Sepand Riyahi, Øyvind Hammer, Tayebeh Arbabi, Antonio Sánchez, Cees S. Roselaar, Mansour Aliabadian and Glenn-Peter Sætre
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Summary:The granivorous house sparrow Passer domesticus is thought to have developed its commensal relationship with humans with the rise of agriculture in the Middle East some 10,000 years ago, and to have expanded with the spread of agriculture in Eurasia during the last few thousand years. One subspecies, P. d. bactrianus, residing in Central Asia, has apparently maintained the ancestral ecology, however. This subspecies is not associated with human settlements; it is migratory and lives in natural grass- and wetland habitats feeding on wild grass seeds. It is well documented that the agricultural revolution was associated with an increase in grain size and changes in seed structure in cultivated cereals, the preferred food source of commensal house sparrow. Accordingly, we hypothesize that correlated changes may have occurred in beak and skull morphology as adaptive responses to the change in diet. Here, we test this hypothesis by comparing the skull shapes of 101 house sparrows from Iran, belonging to five different subspecies, including the non-commensal P. d. bactrianus, using geometric morphometrics.
Item Description:Gesehen am 14.01.2022
Physical Description:Online Resource
ISSN:1471-2148
DOI:10.1186/1471-2148-13-200

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