title: Ecological and evolutionary determinants for the adaptive radiation of the Madagascan vangas.
abstract: Adaptive radiation is the rapid diversification of a single lineage into many species that inhabit a variety of environments or use a variety of resources and differ in traits required to exploit these. Why some lineages undergo adaptive radiation is not well-understood, but filling unoccupied ecological space appears to be a common feature. We construct a complete, dated, species-level phylogeny of the endemic Vangidae of Madagascar. This passerine bird radiation represents a classic, but poorly known, avian adaptive radiation. Our results reveal an initial rapid increase in evolutionary lineages and diversification in morphospace after colonizing Madagascar in the late Oligocene some 25 Mya. A subsequent key innovation involving unique bill morphology was associated with a second increase in diversification rates about 10 Mya. The volume of morphospace occupied by contemporary Madagascan vangas is in many aspects as large (shape variation)--or even larger (size variation)--as that of other better-known avian adaptive radiations, including the much younger Galapagos Darwin's finches and Hawaiian honeycreepers. Morphological space bears a close relationship to diet, substrate use, and foraging movements, and thus our results demonstrate the great extent of the evolutionary diversification of the Madagascan vangas.
authors.affiliation: Center for Macroecology, Evolution and Climate, Natural History Museum of Denmark, University of Copenhagen, 2100 Copenhagen Ø, Denmark. kajonsson@snm.ku.dk
authors.forename: Knud A
authors.initials: KA
authors.lastname: Jønsson
authors.forename: Pierre-Henri
authors.initials: PH
authors.lastname: Fabre
authors.forename: Susanne A
authors.initials: SA
authors.lastname: Fritz
authors.forename: Rampal S
authors.initials: RS
authors.lastname: Etienne
authors.forename: Robert E
authors.initials: RE
authors.lastname: Ricklefs
authors.forename: Tobias B
authors.initials: TB
authors.lastname: Jørgensen
authors.forename: Jon
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Fjeldså
authors.forename: Carsten
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Rahbek
authors.forename: Per G P
authors.initials: PG
authors.lastname: Ericson
authors.forename: Friederike
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Woog
authors.forename: Eric
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Pasquet
authors.forename: Martin
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Irestedt
mesh_terms: D000222:Adaptation, Physiological; D000818:Animals; D005075:Biological Evolution; D001717:Birds / Q000145:classification / Q000235:genetics / Q000502:physiology*; D004463:Ecology; D008270:Madagascar; D008969:Molecular Sequence Data; D010802:Phylogeny