Birth of New Species Witnessed by Scientists

[n2doc]

By Brandon Keim November 16, 2009



On one of the Galapagos islands whose finches shaped the theories of a young Charles Darwin, biologists have witnessed that elusive moment when a single species splits in two.

In many ways, the split followed predictable patterns, requiring a hybrid newcomer who’d already taken baby steps down a new evolutionary path. But playing an unexpected part was chance, and the newcomer singing his own special song.

This miniature evolutionary saga is described in a paper published Monday in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. It’s authored by Peter and Rosemary Grant, a husband-and-wife team who have spent much of the last 36 years studying a group of bird species known collectively as Darwin’s finches.

The finches — or, technically, tanagers — have adapted to the conditions of each island in the Galapagos, and they provided Darwin with a clear snapshot of evolutionary divergence when he sailed there on the HMS Beagle. The Grants have pushed that work further, with decades of painstaking observations providing a real-time record of evolution in action. In the PNAS paper, they describe something Darwin could only have dreamed of watching: the birth of a new species.
more:

http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2009/11/speciation-in-action/



Top to bottom: A to F show successive generations of the hybrids, which now mate only with each other.

[tekisui]

1. Too cool.

knr!~

[Ready4Change]

2. E seems out of place.

?

[Ozymanithrax]

3. Evolution has been documented in microbial life, insects, and now birds.

Every year the proof of evolution becomes clearer, and the waters of denial deeper for those who oppose the idea.

Very good article.

[spin]

4. K&R (n/t)

[Rick Myers]

5. My friend at Answers in Genesis is gonna have a fit!!!

Not really... He REALLY believes Adam and Eve rode Vegetarian Veliciraptors!!!

[laconicsax]

6. Nah...you'll hear the standard response:

"It's still a finch/bird."

Creationists don't just not understand evolution, they don't understand the basic principles of biology. To them, speciation is a change from one modern species into another modern species.

[MineralMan]

7. Damn thing is still a bird, innit?

Let me know when it turns into a lizard or something. That'll be the response from Bullshit from Genesis.

[thereismore]

8. OK, they don't mate cross-islands, but could they is the question.

I need to know that sperm from one cannot fertilize an egg from the other before I call them different species.

Edited for grammar.

[14thColony]

10. Then you will be all alone in that definition of speciation

Biological science does not subscribe to such a narrow definition. If it did, then lions and tigers would be the same species, as would horses and donkeys, since each of these pairs can interbreed quite successfully.

Reproductive isolation is not limited to the "sperm won't fertilize egg" version. Biology acknowledges geographic isolation, differences in habitat, and differences in habit as valid forms of reproductive isolation sufficient to declare a separate species.

Which is why lions and tigers are separate species - geographic isolation despite reproductive compatability - and why horses and donkeys are different species - separate habits/herd structures would usually prevent such an event in the wild.

So if these finches either refuse to interbreed with other finches, or are prevented from doing so by geography, or habit, or whatever, then that meets the requirement for speciation to have taken place.

[ZombieHorde]

9. So awesome. The universe can be pretty impressive sometimes. nt