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单词 adaptive radiation
释义
adaptive radiation

Biology
  • The evolution from one species of animals or plants of a number of different forms. As the original population increases in size it spreads out from its centre of origin to exploit new habitats and food sources. In time this results in a number of populations each adapted to its particular habitat: eventually these populations will differ from each other sufficiently to become new species. A good example of this process is the evolution of the Australian marsupials into species adapted as carnivores, herbivores, burrowers, fliers, etc. On a smaller scale, the adaptive radiation of the Galápagos finches provided Darwin with crucial evidence for his theory of evolution (see darwin’s finches).


Geology and Earth Sciences
  • 1. A burst of evolution, with rapid divergence from a single ancestral form, resulting in the exploitation of an array of habitats. The term is applied at many taxonomic levels, e.g. the radiation of the mammals at the base of the Cenozoic refers to orders, whereas the radiation of ‘Darwin’s finches’ in the Galápagos Islands resulted in a proliferation of species.

    2. Term used synonymously with ‘cladogenesis’ by some authors.


Geography
  • The diversification of species to fill a wide range of ecological niches. Perhaps the most famous example is that of Darwin’s finches in the Galapagos Islands: see K. T. Grant and G. B. Estes (2009). Kassen et al. (2004) Nature 431, 7011 argue that the ecological gradient may limit the size of adaptive radiations.


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