Presenter: Cameron Simmonds
Authors: Cameron Simmonds
Faculty Advisor: Heath Ogden
Institution: Utah Valley University
Remarkable eyesight is found in several different species of birds, most notably in the birds of prey. This raises the question; from where did this remarkable eyesight originate? This research is a phylogenetic study of 30 different bird species and hypothesizes that their eyesight is a result of convergent evolution from high altitude hunting habits. Genetic information for the various species is sourced from NCBI's nucleotide database, and aligned using Mega alignment. Trees are constructed using Bayesian, Neighbor-joining, and Maximum Parsimony methods; each of which will be considered and the best model chosen. Bird clades that exhibit greater than average eyesight are visually highlighted and if a common ancestor cannot be identified, the null hypothesis will be considered false. Bird phylogenies are not as abundantly known as many others, and this research gives greater insight on the relatively newly defined Aves clade. In particular, greater understanding of bird evolution after their divergence from the remainder of the reptiles is further understood from this study.