Craniofacial modularity and cranial kinesis evolution in the adaptive radiation of Furnariidae (Aves: Passeriformes)

The role of phenotypic modularity in the evolution of skull morphology in birds has been a subject of debate in recent years. Furnariids (ovenbirds, woodcreepers, and allies), a spectacular avian adaptive radiation, are distinguished in their cranial morphology as the only passerines with two types of cranial kinesis, constituting a great model to test whether the evolution of novelties in cranial kinesis was associated with shifts in patterns of evolutionary modularity and allometry in the avian skull. Our analyses by means of geometric morphometric tools and phylogenetic comparative methods show that the beak and neurocranium of furnariids evolved in a modular fashion and were shaped by the cranial kinesis evolution. Besides, species with prokinesis show a higher degree of modularity and morphological disparity, lower phenotypic rates, as well a higher contribution of allometry in the evolution of the beak morphology than species with proximal rhynchokinesis, suggesting, as observed i...,
Data sampling 

Skull morphology was studied on photographs taken in lateral and dorsal view of 153 museum skeleton specimens representing 106 species, 51 genera (covering 73% of all currently recognized genera; sensu Clements et al., 2022), three subfamilies (i.e., Sclerurinae, Dendrocolaptinae, and Furnariinae), and all monophyletic clades of Furnariidae (i.e., tribes; sensu Harvey et al., 2020) (see Supplementary Table S1 for information on each specimen examined in this study). Although subtle differences in size between males and females have been reported in some traits in certain species of furnariids (e.g., Moreno et al., 2007; Diniz et al., 2016), there is no significant sexual dimorphism reported in the skulls of these birds (Stefanini et al., 2016). Therefore, our sampling did not discriminate between sexes. 

Morphological quantification 

Variation in skull shape was quantified in 110 specimens representing 83 species (see Supplementary Table S1) using 17 landmarks and 3..., , # Craniofacial modularity and cranial kinesis evolution in the adaptive radiation of Furnariidae (Aves: Passeriformes)

[https://doi.org/10.5061/dryad.4tmpg4fmv](https://doi.org/10.5061/dryad.4tmpg4fmv)

### Files and variables

#### File: Furnariidae\_cranial\_kinesis\_Variables.csv

**Description:** Variables associated with cranial kinesis used in phylogenetic comparative methods.

* Species: Species used in geometric morphometric analyses and PCM
* Kinesis: A binary variable derived from the discretization of the range of values adopted by the kinetic index.
* Indice_Kinetico: A variable constructed from the sum of the states of three variables associated with cranial kinesis.

#### File: Phylogenetic\_trees.zip

**Description:** The complete phylogenetic tree obtained by Harvey et al. (2020) and the three pruned variations used in the present study.

#### File: Neurocranium.zip

**Description:** Landmark coordinates obtained with Stereomorph of all specimens per species. Neurocrani...