How New Bird Species Arise
Published:14 Mar.2022 Source:University of Copenhagen - Faculty of Science
One of the fundamental questions in biology, and a centuries-old academic debate, is: How do new species form? And, how do species end up on mountaintops several kilometers high? Indeed, 85% of the world’s vertebrates -- birds included -- live in mountainous areas where lowland habitats isolate animal species and populations from one another.
“The discussion about how mountain bird species arise has been ongoing among scientific researchers for many years. Some say -- ‘Obviously, birds can just fly from one mountain to another,’ while others say -- ‘Well, actually they don't.’ Scientists have been arguing about this since Darwin and Wallace. But until now, no one had the scientific evidence,” explains associate professor Knud Andreas Jønsson of the Natural History Museum of Denmark at the University of Copenhagen.