title: Response to Comment on "Whole-genome analyses resolve early branches in the tree of life of modern birds".
abstract: Mitchell et al. argue that divergence-time estimates for our avian phylogeny were too young because of an "inappropriate" maximum age constraint for the most recent common ancestor of modern birds and that, as a result, most modern bird orders diverged before the Cretaceous-Paleogene mass extinction event 66 million years ago instead of after. However, their interpretations of the fossil record and timetrees are incorrect.
authors.affiliation: Department of Ornithology, American Museum of Natural History, New York, NY 10024, USA. jlc@amnh.org ebraun68@ufl.edu jarvis@neuro.duke.edu.
authors.forename: Joel
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Cracraft
authors.affiliation: Department of Biology, New Mexico State University, Las Cruces, NM 88003, USA.
authors.forename: Peter
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Houde
authors.affiliation: School of Biological Sciences, University of Sydney, Sydney, New South Wales 2006, Australia.
authors.forename: Simon Y W
authors.initials: SY
authors.lastname: Ho
authors.affiliation: Department of Biochemistry and Biophysics, University of California, San Francisco, CA 94158, USA.
authors.forename: David P
authors.initials: DP
authors.lastname: Mindell
authors.affiliation: Center for Macroecology, Evolution and Climate, Natural History Museum of Denmark, University of Copenhagen, Universitetsparken 15, DK-2100 Copenhagen Ø, Denmark.
authors.forename: Jon
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Fjeldså
authors.affiliation: Centre for GeoGenetics, Natural History Museum of Denmark, University of Copenhagen, Øster Voldgade 5-7, 1350 Copenhagen, Denmark.
authors.forename: Bent
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Lindow
authors.affiliation: Department of Organismic and Evolutionary Biology and Museum of Comparative Zoology, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA 02138, USA.
authors.forename: Scott V
authors.initials: SV
authors.lastname: Edwards
authors.affiliation: Center for Macroecology, Evolution and Climate, Natural History Museum of Denmark, University of Copenhagen, Universitetsparken 15, DK-2100 Copenhagen Ø, Denmark. Department of Life Sciences, Imperial College London, Silwood Park Campus, Ascot SL5 7PY, UK.
authors.forename: Carsten
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Rahbek
authors.affiliation: Department of Computer Science, The University of Texas at Austin, Austin, TX 78712, USA.
authors.forename: Siavash
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Mirarab
authors.affiliation: Department of Computer Science, The University of Texas at Austin, Austin, TX 78712, USA. Departments of Bioengineering and Computer Science, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Urbana, IL 61801, USA.
authors.forename: Tandy
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Warnow
authors.affiliation: Centre for GeoGenetics, Natural History Museum of Denmark, University of Copenhagen, Øster Voldgade 5-7, 1350 Copenhagen, Denmark. Trace and Environmental DNA Laboratory Department of Environment and Agriculture, Curtin University, Perth, Western Australia 6102, Australia.
authors.forename: M Thomas P
authors.initials: MT
authors.lastname: Gilbert
authors.affiliation: China National GeneBank, BGI-Shenzhen, Shenzhen 518083, China. Centre for Social Evolution, Department of Biology, Universitetsparken 15, University of Copenhagen, DK-2100 Copenhagen, Denmark.
authors.forename: Guojie
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Zhang
authors.affiliation: Department of Biology and Genetics Institute, University of Florida, Gainesville, FL 32611, USA. jlc@amnh.org ebraun68@ufl.edu jarvis@neuro.duke.edu.
authors.forename: Edward L
authors.initials: EL
authors.lastname: Braun
authors.affiliation: Department of Neurobiology, Duke University Medical Center, Durham, NC 27710, USA. Howard Hughes Medical Institute, Chevy Chase, MD 20815, USA. jlc@amnh.org ebraun68@ufl.edu jarvis@neuro.duke.edu.
authors.forename: Erich D
authors.initials: ED
authors.lastname: Jarvis
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D001717:Birds / Q000235:genetics*; D016678:Genome; D010802:Phylogeny