Earliest evidence for frugivory and seed dispersal by birds

Abstract

The Early Cretaceous diversification of birds was a major event in the history of terrestrial ecosystems, occurring during the earliest phase of the Cretaceous Terrestrial Revolution. Frugivorous birds play an important role in seed dispersal today, and may have done so since their origins. However, evidence of this has been lacking. Jeholornis is one of the earliest-diverging birds, only slightly more derived than Archaeopteryx, but its cranial anatomy has been poorly understood, obscuring diet-related functional interpretations. Originally hypothesised to be granivorous based on seeds preserved as gut contents, this interpretation has become controversial. We conducted high-resolution synchrotron tomography on an exquisitely preserved new skull of Jeholornis, revealing remarkable cranial plesiomorphies combined with a specialised rostrum. We use this to provide a near-complete cranial reconstruction of Jeholornis, and exclude the possibility that Jeholornis was granivorous, based on morphometric analyses of the mandible (3D) and cranium (2D), and comparisons with the 3D alimentary contents of extant birds. We show that Jeholornis was at least seasonally frugivorous, providing the earliest evidence for fruit consumption in birds, and indicating that seed dispersal was present from early in the avian radiation. As highly-mobile seed dispersers, early frugivorous birds could expand the scope for biotic dispersal in plants, and may explain, in part, the subsequent evolutionary expansion of fruits, indicating a potential role of bird-plant interactions in the Cretaceous Terrestrial Revolution.