Ecological Speciation in South Atlantic Island Finches

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 eac...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:	Science (American Association for the Advancement of Science) 2007-03, Vol.315 (5817), p.1420-1423
Main Authors:	Ryan, Peter G, Bloomer, Paulette, Moloney, Coleen L, Grant, Tyron J, Delport, Wayne
Format:	Article
Language:	eng
Subjects:	Adaptation, Biological Animal and plant ecology Animal populations Animal, plant and microbial ecology Animals Atlantic Islands Autoecology Aves Beak - anatomy & histology Biological and medical sciences Biological Evolution Bird songs Birds Body Size DNA, Mitochondrial - analysis DNA, Mitochondrial - genetics Ecological genetics Ecosystem Evolution Evolutionary biology Evolutionary genetics Finches Finches - anatomy & histology Finches - genetics Fundamental and applied biological sciences. Psychology Genetic diversity Genetic Speciation Geography Hybridity Marine ecology Microsatellite Repeats Nesospiza Nightingales Population genetics Seeds Selection, Genetic Speciation Vertebrata Vertebrates: general zoology, morphology, phylogeny, systematics, cytogenetics, geographical distribution
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Summary:	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.
ISSN:	0036-8075 1095-9203