Adaptive Radiation in Birds

Diamos, Guevarra
February 24, 2014

Adaptive Radiation
An adaptive radiation is
a clade (group of related
species) that has
diversified rapidly into a
multitude of new forms
Brought about by a change
in the environment
-Opportunity
-Innovation
A characteristic example of
cladogenesis

Adaptive
Radiation

Adaptive Radiation:
Generalization
Definition: Adaptation of a
species to a wide range of
environmental niches
Examples:
Mammals spread after the
disappearance of dinosaurs 65
million years ago and occupied
innumerable niches
Monkeys with a mixed diet
occupied diverse arboreal
habitats; displaced the
prosimians
Humans: from frozen north to
tropical rainforest or desert
- Most generalized primate
(because of culture)

Adaptive Radiation:
Specialization
Definition: Adaptation of a species to a narrow range
of environmental niches
Examples:
Darwins finches on Galpagos Islands
Medium ground finch was nearly wiped out in the 1977
drought
Sudden change could eliminate this or others of these
genera and species of finches
Example: Prosimians adapt in habitats afforded by
Madagascar and are close to extinction

Adaptive Radiation: Birds

Main Cause: Evolution of a key innovation
Birds radiate after the evolution of flapping flight
Hypotheses:
From the trees down
From the ground up
WAIR
Pouncing Proavis

Adaptive Radiation: Birds

Characteristics for birds leading to radiation:

Removal of a species from an area of interspecific

selection

Paradisaea rudolphi

Semioptera wallacii

Adaptive Radiation: Birds

Characteristics for birds leading to radiation :

Any life requirement where there is competition

and interaction among species

Feeding adaptations
Nest foraging
Flock signals
Food allocation
High rate of interspecific
hybridization

Adaptive Radiation: Darwins Finches

Hawaiian Honeycreepers

Hawaiian honeycreepers
Of Hawaiis birds, the
honeycreepers (Drepanidinae)
are most famous
An explosion of species from a
single unspecialized ancestor
to at least 54 species
- dwarfs the famed radiation
of Darwins 14 Galapagos
finches
Small to medium-sized
passerines (perching birds,
less accurately called
songbirds) with very varied
morphotypes; some dull olivegreen, others bright red or
yellow.

Hawaiian honeycreepers
Ancestor arrived three to four million years ago;
others put the arrival farther back, at closer to
seven million years ago
- This ancestor, one colonizing species of finch,
started what proved to be an evolutionary
snowball
- "There must have been a lot of open niches, and
the birds hit the islands and speciated very
rapidly,- R. Fleischer, National
Zoos
Molecular Genetics
Thought
to be within
the first
Laboratory

200,000 to 300,000 years after

the first finch touch-down

Hawaiian honeycreepers

Nectar-feeding
honeycreepers with
dramatically curved
bills

Insectivorous
honeycreepers
with thin,
warbler-like bills

Figure 1.Gradualism provides a plausible explanation for the origin of different bill
shapes in the Hawaiian honeycreepers shown here..

How did this incredible diversity evolve over

time?
Hawaiian Islands part
of a conveyor belt of
island formation due to
volcanic activity
Each island that forms
represents a blank
slate for evolution
Enabled scientists to
tie a biological system
to geological formation

Hawaiian honeycreepers
Shared the islands
with an array of other
unique bird species
An almost mythical
world where birds, not
mammals, dominated
Isolation left Hawaiis
flora and fauna illequipped to deal with
the arrival of humans
- flightless and groundnesting species were
wiped out
* 15 genera, 23 species, 24 taxa.
* 18 species threatened; 3 of these, and 3 currently unassessed species,
possibly extinct; at least 16 other species extinct since 1600

Conclusion
Adaptive radiation is a rapid diversification of a clade
due to several reasons.
Darwins finches...
Morphological innovations under specific ecological
conditions have fuelled radiations like those of the
drepanidine Hawaiian honeycreepers
Humans definitely affect the course of evolution for
the mentioned species
- may drive speciation, or extinction