Project description
The rise of modern birds after the Age of the Dinosaurs
How did birds survive through the extinction of non-avian dinosaurs and diversified afterwards? This question remains unanswered mainly due to a lack of integrated fossil data. Supported by the Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions programme, the JANUS project will address this gap by building an extensive 3D dataset of fossil birds from Late Cretaceous and early Cenozoic museum collections, using high-resolution CT scanning to reconstruct morphology and ecology in unprecedented detail. These data will allow a combination of phylogenetic analysis, geometric morphometrics and ecological traits to reconstruct evolutionary trends through this pivotal event. Overall, the project aims to establish a comprehensive framework for understanding the drivers behind modern bird survival and diversification following the end of the Age of the Dinosaurs.
Objective
Living birds constitute the only lineage of dinosaurs that survived the Cretaceous-Paleogene Mass Extinction (K-Pg). However, whether specific aspects of their morphology and ecology facilitated their survival and subsequent radiation in the wake of the K-Pg still represents a major knowledge gap in avian palaeontology and macroevolution. Insights into this crucial evolutionary transition remain elusive, primarily due to the lack of an integrated approach that combines data from both Cretaceous and Cenozoic fossil birds. JANUS aims to overcome these outstanding limitations by building a novel dataset of fossil specimens spanning this transition to explore the origin of Neornithes (living birds) and using these to quantitatively explore the major macroevolutionary and ecological trends underpinning the early evolution of the group. This effort will rely on the collection of an unprecedentedly large sample of fossil bird three-dimensional micro–Computerized Tomography (CT) data, including Late Cretaceous and early Cenozoic birds from main European museums. This rich 3D morphological data will clarify the phylogenetic structure underlying the early evolution of modern birds through the assemblage of a novel phylogenetic dataset, leading to updated and time-calibrated hypotheses of the interrelationships among the earliest fossil representatives of the main neornithine lineages. Furthermore, this wealth of 3D CT data will enable the implementation of high-dimensional Geometric Morphometric analyses studying the relation between shape and ecology in fossil and living birds. The novel phylogenetic and eco-morphological framework will ultimately permit the application of a range of Phylogenetic Comparative Methods to evaluate ecomorphological signal across Cenozoic bird diversification, predict the likely ecology of ancestral birds, and characterise the large-scale macroevolutionary patterns structuring and impacting the extraordinary diversity of living birds.
Fields of science (EuroSciVoc)
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CORDIS classifies projects with EuroSciVoc, a multilingual taxonomy of fields of science, through a semi-automatic process based on NLP techniques. See: The European Science Vocabulary.
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Keywords
Project’s keywords as indicated by the project coordinator. Not to be confused with the EuroSciVoc taxonomy (Fields of science)
Project’s keywords as indicated by the project coordinator. Not to be confused with the EuroSciVoc taxonomy (Fields of science)
Programme(s)
Multi-annual funding programmes that define the EU’s priorities for research and innovation.
Multi-annual funding programmes that define the EU’s priorities for research and innovation.
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HORIZON.1.2 - Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions (MSCA)
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Topic(s)
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Calls for proposals are divided into topics. A topic defines a specific subject or area for which applicants can submit proposals. The description of a topic comprises its specific scope and the expected impact of the funded project.
Funding Scheme
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Funding scheme (or “Type of Action”) inside a programme with common features. It specifies: the scope of what is funded; the reimbursement rate; specific evaluation criteria to qualify for funding; and the use of simplified forms of costs like lump sums.
HORIZON-TMA-MSCA-PF-EF - HORIZON TMA MSCA Postdoctoral Fellowships - European Fellowships
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Call for proposal
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Procedure for inviting applicants to submit project proposals, with the aim of receiving EU funding.
(opens in new window) HORIZON-MSCA-2025-PF
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08201 Barcelona
Spain
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