Sometimes evolution proceeds much more rapidly than we might think. Genetic analysis makes it possible to detect the earliest stages of species formation and to gain a better understanding of speciation processes. For example, ...
Ecology
Feb 29, 2016
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Scientists at the University of Liverpool have found that amphibians that use toxins to protect themselves against predators are at a higher risk of extinction than those who use other types of defence, which poses a challenge ...
Evolution
Oct 19, 2015
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Birds that are related, such as Darwin's finches, but that vary in beak size and behavior specially evolved to their habitat are examples of a process called speciation. It has long been thought that dramatic changes in a ...
Evolution
Nov 20, 2014
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Only a few genetic changes are needed to spur the evolution of new species—even if the original populations are still in contact and exchanging genes. Once started, however, evolutionary divergence evolves rapidly, ultimately ...
Evolution
Oct 31, 2013
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Ten thousand years ago, at the end of the last ice age, a species of greenish warblers lived in a forest south of the Tibetan Plateau. As the ice receded, the forest grew to form a ring around the plateau—and so did the ...
Ecology
Mar 12, 2013
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(Phys.org)—new paper by researchers at the University of Notre Dame provides new insights into speciation, which is the evolutionary process by which new biological species arise.
Plants & Animals
Feb 18, 2013
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(Phys.org)—A research team working in Israel has found what might possibly be an example of evolutionary divergence in action – and it's not due to a natural barrier. In their paper published in the Proceedings of the ...
Anyone who went outside this summer felt the effects of climate change. Now the Eurasian shrew, Sorex araneus, can say the same. A new study by P. David Polly of Indiana University found that climate change caused shrews ...
Ecology
Oct 23, 2012
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(Phys.org) -- Researchers at the Hawai'i Institute of Marine Biology (HIMB), an organized research unit within the School of Ocean and Earth Science and Technology, have made a remarkable discovery in ...
Plants & Animals
Jul 20, 2012
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A new study indicates that mass extinctions affect the pace of evolution, not just in the immediate aftermath of catastrophe, but for millions of years to follow. The study's authors, University of Chicago's Andrew Z. Krug ...
Earth Sciences
Jul 2, 2012
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