Big birds of North America

In a new Bulletin of the American Museum of Natural History there is an article on a newly discovered fossil from Wyoming of a paleognath - the same group that contains ostriches, emus, rheas, and tinamous. The specimen is about 50 million years old - post dinosaur apocalypse and pre Pleistocene. 

I love the idea of paleognaths in the neighborhood. I wonder though what ecology would look like if we were around then. Would be still have our rules (Bolgers, latitude and species diversity, etc).