The subject of sympatric speciation periodically pops up in birding
circles ...
http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/315/5817/1420
Ecological Speciation in South Atlantic Island Finches
Peter G. Ryan, Paulette Bloomer, Coleen L. Moloney, Tyron J. Grant,
Wayne Delport
Science 9 March 2007: Vol. 315. no. 5817, pp. 1420 - 1423
Examples of sympatric speciation in nature are rare and hotly debated.
We describe the parallel speciation of finches on two small islands in
the Tristan da Cunha archipelago in the South Atlantic Ocean. Nesospiza
buntings are a classic example of a simple adaptive radiation, with two
species on each island: an abundant small-billed dietary generalist and
a scarce large-billed specialist. Their morphological diversity closely
matches the available spectrum of seed sizes, and genetic evidence
suggests that they evolved independently on each island. Speciation is
complete on the smaller island, where there is a single habitat with
strongly bimodal seed size abundance, but is incomplete on the larger
island, where a greater diversity of habitats has resulted in three
lineages. Our study suggests that the buntings have undergone parallel
ecological speciation.
===============================
www.birding-aus.org
birding-aus.blogspot.com
To unsubscribe from this mailing list,
send the message:
unsubscribe
(in the body of the message, with no Subject line)
to:
===============================
|
