What is it about?
We test the fit of the ecological opportunity model of adaptive radiation as an explanation for the exceptional diversity in muroid rodents -- the largest superfamily of rodents (includes mice, rats, gerbils, hamsters, and relatives). Ecological opportunity is simply a model that is used to explain early, rapid speciation as a result of a species newly-encountering an abundance of resources (and little competition).
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Why is it important?
When species colonize new regions, such as islands or continents, they are expected to experience less competition and escape other antagonistic interactions. One possible response would be to increase rapidly in population size, and after a period of time elapses, for individuals to adapt to different niches in the new region, and consequently undergo both increased morphological differentiation and speciation. Although this pattern occurs in many taxonomic groups, we did not find evidence for it in muroid rodents. This is interesting because despite muroids being extremely diverse, and occurring worldwide, their gradual colonization of continents does not seem to coincide with their rapid diversification events.
Perspectives
This article was based on the first chapter of my doctoral dissertation. I learned a lot from the process of conducting this study and gained a new appreciation for all the interesting questions that can be asked using phylogenies and data gathered from the literature.
Bader H Alhajeri
Kuwait University
Read the Original
This page is a summary of: Ecomorphological diversification following continental colonization in muroid rodents (Rodentia: Muroidea), Biological Journal of the Linnean Society, October 2015, Oxford University Press (OUP),
DOI: 10.1111/bij.12695.
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