13Aug,
2018
By Anne
Manning
In
nature, organisms are constantly adapting to their surroundings. It’s why
animal or plant populations with the same set of genes will do different things
in different environments.
These
adaptive divergences can occur within fewer generations, and at smaller spatial
scales, than classic evolutionary theory would have us believe. Launching a new
study, Colorado State University biologists are diving into the question of just
how small these scales could be. To find out, they’re studying a rare, isolated
bird that, it turns out, is a bit of a homebody.
Researchers
led by Cameron Ghalambor, professor in the Department of Biology, are launching
a National Science Foundation-supported study of what evolutionary biologists
term “microgeographic” adaptation strategies of island scrub-jays, North
America’s only island-endemic bird. Island scrub-jays live exclusively on Santa
Cruz Island, one of the Channel Islands off the southern California coast.
The study
is aimed at understanding how isolated species like scrub-jays somehow manage
to genetically diverge, creating sub-populations that reflect specific,
adaptive traits. That’s despite living in an area of less than 100 square miles,
with plenty of opportunity to interbreed. What the researchers learn could
provide new insight into the mechanisms by which individuals in a single
population diverge across habitats, and what that could mean for conservation
biology, biodiversity and evolution.
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