title: Niche diversification follows key innovation in Antarctic fish radiation.
abstract: Antarctic notothenioid fishes provide a fascinating evolutionary laboratory for the study of adaptive radiation, as their diversification is linked to both isolation in an extreme environment and a key innovation that allows them to exploit it. In this issue of Molecular Ecology, Rutschmann et al. (2011) evaluate how dietary niche differences have evolved in notothenioids: rarely, or repeatedly in multiple lineages. The authors use stable isotopes to measure species’ use of benthic vs. pelagic resources and map resource use onto a molecular phylogeny. Their findings indicate that pelagic diets have evolved in multiple lineages in at least two families, indicating that dietary niche diversification has occurred repeatedly and in parallel.
authors.affiliation: Department of Organismic and Evolutionary Biology, Harvard University, 26 Oxford Street, Cambridge MA 02138, USA. ingram@fas.harvard.edu
authors.forename: T
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Ingram
authors.forename: D  L
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Mahler
mesh_terms: D000220:Adaptation, Biological / Q000235:genetics*; D000818:Animals; D005075:Biological Evolution; D017753:Ecosystem; D005399:Fishes / Q000235:genetics*; D010802:Phylogeny