What does adaptive radiation cause?
2 Answers
Environmental changes cause the adaptive radiation.
Explanation:
In the adaptive radiation, rapidly the diversity of organisms is formed from the ancestral species in the changed natural environment. Changed environment opened new challenge especially in the fields of natural resources. These events opened a new environmental niches. Thank you
adaptive radiation allows existing variant forms of DNA within a species to spread out into different environments and niches.
Explanation:
The classic example is the radiation of Darwin's finches on the Galapagos Islands. It is thought that a few pioneer finches were blown by a storm from the mainland of South America to the islands.
These few original finches have radiated into multiple niches on the volcanic islands.
Today scientists consider there to be 13 species of finches that form a single family. Some of the finches live in trees and eat fruits and bugs. Other also live in trees but only eat plants. Six species live on the ground and eat seeds. All are a result of adaptive radiation from the information contained in the original pioneer finches from the mainland. ( Beak of the Finch page 42)
There are large beak ground finches, medium beak ground finches and small beak ground finches. Each species is adapted to eat a different type of seeds hence occupying a different niche. Other finches eat cactus as a niche.
In good times on the islands the species interbreed and produce successful hybrids. In bad times with little rain the species specialize and separate. This shows that the DNA of the species comes from a common ancestor and that the species can come back together to form a single species under the right conditions. ve
Adaptive radiation allows the natural variation existing in a species to form multiple sub species able to occupy many different niches under environmental pressure and opportunity.
