Adaptive Radiation: Contrasting Theory with Data

By Sergey Gavrilets, J. Losos. Science, 2009

715 citations recorded by the source corpus.

Biologists have long been fascinated by the exceptionally high diversity displayed by some evolutionary groups. Adaptive radiation in such clades is not only spectacular, but is also an extremely complex process influenced by a variety of ecological, genetic, and developmental factors and strongly dependent on historical contingencies. Using modeling approaches, we identify 10 general patterns concerning the temporal, spatial, and genetic/morphological properties of adaptive radiation. Some of these are strongly supported by empirical work, whereas for others, empirical support is more tentative. In almost all cases, more data are needed. Future progress in our understanding of adaptive radiation will be most successful if theoretical and empirical approaches are integrated, as has happened in other areas of evolutionary biology.

Subfields: Ecological Modeling, Genetics, Nature and Landscape Conservation

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/3cd5dd616ce81059b536c5fd717672405a9396ca

How researchers see this paper

The researchers whose trusted networks rank it highest, strongest advocate first. Every researcher gets a different order.

In Ecological Modeling

1. Luke J. Harmon
2. T. Oberdorff
3. Stephen F. Spear
4. Michael Benton
5. William Godsoe
6. P. Tedesco
7. B. Blonder
8. Neftalí Sillero

In Genetics

1. A. Cohen
2. Jonathan M. Eastman
3. Luke J. Harmon
4. Stephen F. Spear
5. Michael Benton
6. Walter Salzburger
7. William Godsoe
8. P. Tedesco

In Nature and Landscape Conservation

1. Jonathan M. Eastman
2. Luke J. Harmon
3. T. Oberdorff
4. Stephen F. Spear
5. Michael Benton
6. William Godsoe
7. P. Tedesco
8. B. Blonder

Citations in the corpus

• Ecology and Evolution of the African Great Lakes and Their Faunas (2014, background): “Hence, we first focus on adaptive radiation and its two main components, speciation and adaptation of the newly formed species to distinct ecological niches (Gavrilets & Losos 2009).”
• Macroevolutionary patterns in the evolutionary radiation of archosaurs (Tetrapoda: Diapsida) (2010, neutral): “Whether the earliest phase of the archosaur radiation was an adaptive radiation is unclear, as this is di ffi cult to test in long-extinct organisms (Gavrilets & Losos 2009).”
• Investigating evolutionary radiations (2010, methodology): “…on the third and fourth approaches (Schluter 2000; Gavrilets and Losos 2009; Rundell and Price 2009), and key findings include ten observations (Gavrilets and Losos 2009): much speciation and divergence happens early in a radiation, species diversity may initially overshoot and then reduce,…”
• Natural fragmentation in river networks as a driver of speciation for freshwater fishes (2013, background): “The relative importance of factors contributing to diversification remains thus an active research area (Orr and Smith 1998, Losos and Schluter 2000, Rundle and Nosil 2005, Ricklefs and Bermingham 2007, Gavrilets and Losos 2009, Hortal et al. 2011).”
• Ecological opportunity and the origin of adaptive radiations (2010, background): “As adaptive radiation proceeds, lineages are expected to rapidly fill unoccupied niche space as they diversify (Gavrilets & Losos, 2009).”