Comparing Adaptive Radiations Across Space, Time, and Taxa

Authors

Rosemary G. Gillespie, University of California, Berkeley
Gordon M. Bennett, University of California, Merced
Luc De Meester, University of Leuven
Jeffrey L. Feder, University of Notre Dame
Robert C. Fleischer, Smithsonian Conservation Biology Institute
Luke J. Harmon, University of Idaho
Andrew P. Hendry, McGill University
Matthew L. Knope, University of Hawaii at Hilo
James Mallet, Harvard University
Christopher Martin, University of California, Berkeley
Christine E. Parent, University of Idaho
Austin H. Patton, Washington State University
Karin S. Pfennig, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill
Daniel Rubinoff, University of Hawai’i at Manoa
Dolph Schluter, University of British Columbia
Ole Seehausen, Center for Ecology
Kerry L. Shaw, Cornell University
Elizabeth Stacy, University of Nevada, Las VegasFollow
Martin Stervander, University of Oregon
James T. Stroud, Washington University in Saint Louis
Catherine Wagner, University of Wyoming
Guinevere O.U. Wogan, University of California, Berkeley

Document Type

Article

Publication Date

1-20-2020

Publication Title

Journal of Heredity

Volume

2019

First page number:

1

Last page number:

20

Abstract

Adaptive radiation plays a fundamental role in our understanding of the evolutionary process. However, the concept has provoked strong and differing opinions concerning its definition and nature among researchers studying a wide diversity of systems. Here, we take a broad view of what constitutes an adaptive radiation, and seek to find commonalities among disparate examples, ranging from plants to invertebrate and vertebrate animals, and remote islands to lakes and continents, to better understand processes shared across adaptive radiations. We surveyed many groups to evaluate factors considered important in a large variety of species radiations. In each of these studies, ecological opportunity of some form is identified as a prerequisite for adaptive radiation. However, evolvability, which can be enhanced by hybridization between distantly related species, may play a role in seeding entire radiations. Within radiations, the processes that lead to speciation depend largely on (1) whether the primary drivers of ecological shifts are (a) external to the membership of the radiation itself (mostly divergent or disruptive ecological selection) or (b) due to competition within the radiation membership (interactions among members) subsequent to reproductive isolation in similar environments, and (2) the extent and timing of admixture. These differences translate into different patterns of species accumulation and subsequent patterns of diversity across an adaptive radiation. Adaptive radiations occur in an extraordinary diversity of different ways, and continue to provide rich data for a better understanding of the diversification of life.

Disciplines

Astrophysics and Astronomy | Physical Sciences and Mathematics

Language

English

Repository Citation

Gillespie, R. G., Bennett, G. M., De Meester, L., Feder, J. L., Fleischer, R. C., Harmon, L. J., Hendry, A. P., Knope, M. L., Mallet, J., Martin, C., Parent, C. E., Patton, A. H., Pfennig, K. S., Rubinoff, D., Schluter, D., Seehausen, O., Shaw, K. L., Stacy, E., Stervander, M., Stroud, J. T., Wagner, C., Wogan, G. O. (2020). Comparing Adaptive Radiations Across Space, Time, and Taxa. Journal of Heredity, 2019 1-20.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/jhered/esz064