What pressures would cause a group of organisms to speciate rather than either adapt into a single niche or generalize into multiple niches?
I'm trying to figure out how the organisms (wheat, mouse, genetically engineered cat) on a seeded world I'm designing experienced adaptive radiation beyond just by separating the populations.
But everything I can think of feels like I'm artificially saying it happened just because I want it to.
Hi,
I have some confusion about the concept of adaptive radiation. Like for eg., A fish population independently colonizes a lake and radiates to different zones, will there be changes only to their morphology/phenotypes or there would be changes in its genotype as well??
In simple words, would they be genetically similar or different? (after adaptive radiation)
Thank you!
Adaptive radiation is the evolutionary process by which species and genera (or other/higher taxa) rapidly diversify and spread into new niches, often in the aftermath of major extinction events or when other events suddenly open up new niches, as discussed in this video on adaptive radiation in the Triassic, or as defined on Wikipedia.
It is often stated that we are in the midst of another mass extinction event caused primarily by human activity and its effects on the planet, and that this has kicked off a new geologic era, the Anthropocene. Many species all over the world have gone extinct over the past several thousand years, and many invasive and domesticated species have been rapidly spread around the world to new habitats (horses, rats, earthworms, ash borers, etc.)
This would seem to open up new opportunities for another, possibly quite dramatic, round of adaptive radiation, as the species that remain (especially those spread all over the planet by us) take over niches left open by mass extinctions. My question is, is there evidence for this happening right now, or within the several thousand years since significant human impact on the planet began? If so, what sort of evidence is there?
Furthermore, what kinds of adaptive radiation might we expect to occur (whether or not they are documented yet). For example, rats have spread over much of the earth - would they be likely to diversify in a similar manner to the original rodent-like ancestors of mammals, and take an a variety of sizes and niches?
Context: Alien intelligence transplants terran life to a number of planets, but missed a few of the major tetrapod lines on one world, such most of the carnivorans, crocodilians and primates.
Adaptive radiation is the evolutionary process by which species and genera (or other/higher taxa) rapidly diversify and spread into new niches, often in the aftermath of major extinction events or when other events suddenly open up new niches, as discussed in this video on adaptive radiation in the Triassic, or as defined on Wikipedia.
It is often stated that we are in the midst of another mass extinction event caused primarily by human activity and its effects on the planet, and that this has kicked off a new geologic era, the Anthropocene. Many species all over the world have gone extinct over the past several thousand years, and many invasive and domesticated species have been rapidly spread around the world to new habitats (horses, rats, earthworms, ash borers, etc.)
This would seem to open up new opportunities for another, possibly quite dramatic, round of adaptive radiation, as the species that remain (especially those spread all over the planet by us) take over niches left open by mass extinctions. My question is, is there evidence for this happening right now, or within the several thousand years since significant human impact on the planet began? If so, what sort of evidence is there?
Furthermore, what kinds of adaptive radiation might we expect to occur (whether or not they are documented yet). For example, rats have spread over much of the earth - would they be likely to diversify in a similar manner to the original rodent-like ancestors of mammals, and take an a variety of sizes and niches?
