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Evolutionary Dead End in the Galápagos: Divergence of Sexual Signals in the Rarest of Darwin's Finches
Understanding the mechanisms underlying speciation remains a challenge in evolutionary biology. The adaptive radiation of Darwin's finches is a prime example of species formation, and their study has revealed many important insights into evolutionary processes. Here, we report striking differen...
Autores principales: | , , , |
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Formato: | Texto |
Lenguaje: | English |
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Public Library of Science
2010
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Acceso en línea: | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2890412/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20585648 http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0011191 |
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author | Brumm, Henrik Farrington, Heather Petren, Kenneth Fessl, Birgit |
author_facet | Brumm, Henrik Farrington, Heather Petren, Kenneth Fessl, Birgit |
author_sort | Brumm, Henrik |
collection | PubMed |
description | Understanding the mechanisms underlying speciation remains a challenge in evolutionary biology. The adaptive radiation of Darwin's finches is a prime example of species formation, and their study has revealed many important insights into evolutionary processes. Here, we report striking differences in mating signals (songs), morphology and genetics between the two remnant populations of Darwin's mangrove finch Camarhynchus heliobates, one of the rarest species in the world. We also show that territorial males exhibited strong discrimination of sexual signals by locality: in response to foreign songs, males responded weaker than to songs from their own population. Female responses were infrequent and weak but gave approximately similar results. Our findings not only suggest speciation in the mangrove finch, thereby providing strong support for the central role of sexual signals during speciation, but they have also implications for the conservation of this iconic bird. If speciation is complete, the eastern species will face imminent extinction, because it has a population size of only 5–10 individuals. |
format | Text |
id | pubmed-2890412 |
institution | National Center for Biotechnology Information |
language | English |
publishDate | 2010 |
publisher | Public Library of Science |
record_format | MEDLINE/PubMed |
spelling | pubmed-28904122010-06-28 Evolutionary Dead End in the Galápagos: Divergence of Sexual Signals in the Rarest of Darwin's Finches Brumm, Henrik Farrington, Heather Petren, Kenneth Fessl, Birgit PLoS One Research Article Understanding the mechanisms underlying speciation remains a challenge in evolutionary biology. The adaptive radiation of Darwin's finches is a prime example of species formation, and their study has revealed many important insights into evolutionary processes. Here, we report striking differences in mating signals (songs), morphology and genetics between the two remnant populations of Darwin's mangrove finch Camarhynchus heliobates, one of the rarest species in the world. We also show that territorial males exhibited strong discrimination of sexual signals by locality: in response to foreign songs, males responded weaker than to songs from their own population. Female responses were infrequent and weak but gave approximately similar results. Our findings not only suggest speciation in the mangrove finch, thereby providing strong support for the central role of sexual signals during speciation, but they have also implications for the conservation of this iconic bird. If speciation is complete, the eastern species will face imminent extinction, because it has a population size of only 5–10 individuals. Public Library of Science 2010-06-23 /pmc/articles/PMC2890412/ /pubmed/20585648 http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0011191 Text en Brumm et al. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are properly credited. |
spellingShingle | Research Article Brumm, Henrik Farrington, Heather Petren, Kenneth Fessl, Birgit Evolutionary Dead End in the Galápagos: Divergence of Sexual Signals in the Rarest of Darwin's Finches |
title | Evolutionary Dead End in the Galápagos: Divergence of Sexual Signals in the Rarest of Darwin's Finches |
title_full | Evolutionary Dead End in the Galápagos: Divergence of Sexual Signals in the Rarest of Darwin's Finches |
title_fullStr | Evolutionary Dead End in the Galápagos: Divergence of Sexual Signals in the Rarest of Darwin's Finches |
title_full_unstemmed | Evolutionary Dead End in the Galápagos: Divergence of Sexual Signals in the Rarest of Darwin's Finches |
title_short | Evolutionary Dead End in the Galápagos: Divergence of Sexual Signals in the Rarest of Darwin's Finches |
title_sort | evolutionary dead end in the galápagos: divergence of sexual signals in the rarest of darwin's finches |
topic | Research Article |
url | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2890412/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20585648 http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0011191 |
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