Bird Species: How They Arise, Modify and Vanish

ISBN-13: 9783319916880 / Angielski / Twarda / 2018 / 266 str.

Dieter Thomas Tietze

Opis

The average person can name more bird species than they think, but do we really know what a bird "species" is? From genetic and physiological basics to the phenomena of bird song and bird migration, it analyzes various interactions of birds - with their environment and other birds.

Recenzje

"More than 40 tables and attractive illustrations help to enhance what many may find to be a difficult, highly advanced text, loaded with acronyms and graduate-level terminology, ... Summing Up: Recommended. Graduate students, researchers, and professionals." (H. T. Armistead, Choice, Vol. 56 (11), July, 2019)

Spis treści

Introduction

N. N. (institution?)

What makes birds suitable to study speciation? What is the historical background of this research? Where were famous people misled?

Species definition and 21^st-century taxonomy of birds

Sangster (Swedish Museum of Natural History, Stockholm, Sweden)

How were species traditionally defined? What are the limitations of these definitions? Which are modern approaches to overcome these short-comings towards integrated low-level taxonomy?

Genomics of speciation

Burri? (Jena University, Germany)

What is an avian genome? How does it evolve? How can we study speciation by looking at fragments of genome sequences?

Reproductive isolation, sperm competition

Schmoll (Bielefeld University, Germany)

Why is it necessary to have reproductively isolated entities to call them “species”? What is the role of sperm here? What are the consequences of sperm competition?

Morphological variation: plasticity vs. adaptation

Töpfer (Zoological Research Museum Alexander Koenig, Bonn, Germany)

What was the traditional role of morphology in species delimitation? How do birds differ morphologically (sex, age, season, geography)? How can we disentangle phenotypic plasticity and evolutionary adaptation?

Song – the learnt language of three major bird clades

Päckert (Senckenberg Natural History Collections, Dresden, Germany)

Which birds are able to learn their songs? How does this speed up speciation? How can we study this?

(Micro)evolutionary changes and the evolutionary potential of bird migration

Liedvogel & Delmore (Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Biology, Plön, Germany)

How are different types of bird migration regulated? How can this change in the short run? Which role does migration play in speciation?

Bird distributions and their evolution

Schweizer & N. N. (Natural History Museum Bern, Switzerland)

Where do we find birds? What is the role of geography in speciation? How do ranges evolve?

Adaptive radiations on islands

Garcia-del-Rey (Macaronesian Institute of Field Ornithology, Santa Cruz de Tenerife, Spain)

What makes islands special for the study of birds? How does adaptive radiation work? How do the Galápagos, Hawaiian and Macaronesian islands differ in this respect?

Diversification in mountain systems

Habel & Husemann (Technische Universität, München, Germany)

What makes mountain systems special for the study of birds? Why do mountains harbor such a high diversity? How do they facilitate subspecific differentiation? How do the Andes, African mountains, and the Sino-Himalayan system differ in these respects?

Ecological speciation: when “survival of the fittest” drives divergence

Edelaar (University Pablo de Olavide, Seville, Spain)

What does ecological speciation mean? Which avian examples are there (brood parasites, Loxia)?

Interactions between birds and plants

Schleuning, Abrahamczyk & Neuschulz (Senckenberg Biodiversity and Climate Research Centre, Frankfurt am Main, Germany; Nees Institute for Plant Biodiversity, Bonn University, Germany)

Why do birds matter for plants? How do bird-plant relationships influence evolution and ecosystem stability?

Impact of climate change on birds

Stiels (Zoological Research Museum Alexander Koenig, Bonn, Germany)

What are the consequences of climate change for birds? What limits range shifts? Do niches and interactions with abiotic and biotic environment “evolve”?

Impact of urbanization on birds

Isaksson (Lund University, Sweden)

Which role does the spread of human settlements in the Anthropocene play? In how far do cities drive away or favor avian species? In which ways do urban species change to survive and reproduce?

Bird “species” conservation after all that

Şekercioğlu? (University of Utah, Salt Lake City, USA)

What can conservation learn from intraspecific evolutionary biology? What are the major threats? What needs to be studied in more detail? How should politicians “adapt”?

Conclusions and open questions

Price? (University of Chicago, USA)

O autorze

Dieter Thomas Tietze studied the integrative taxonomy of passerine birds with Jochen Martens at Mainz University (doctoral scholarship from Villigst) and then broadened his focus at the Zoological Museum in Dresden (phylogeography), the University of Chicago (DFG research fellowship; community ecology and phylogeny of Himalayan passerine birds), and the Universities of Frankfurt am Main (historical biogeography, trait evolution) and Heidelberg (avian urban ecology, genomics). He has served on various conservation NGOs and the advisory board of the German Ornithologists’ Society (DO-G). He is currently Vertebrate Curator at the Natural History Museum in Basel.

Blurb

The average person can name more bird species than they think, but do we really know what a bird “species” is? This open access book takes up several fascinating aspects of bird life to elucidate this basic concept in biology. From genetic and physiological basics to the phenomena of bird song and bird migration, it analyzes various interactions of birds – with their environment and other birds. Lastly, it shows imminent threats to birds in the Anthropocene, the era of global human impact.

Although it seemed to be easy to define bird species, the advent of modern methods has challenged species definition and led to a multidisciplinary approach to classifying birds. One outstanding new toolbox comes with the more and more reasonably priced acquisition of whole-genome sequences that allow causative analyses of how bird species diversify.

Speciation has reached a final stage when daughter species are reproductively isolated, but this stage is not easily detectable from the phenotype we observe. Culturally transmitted traits such as bird song seem to speed up speciation processes, while another behavioral trait, migration, helps birds to find food resources, and also coincides with higher chances of reaching new, inhabitable areas. In general, distribution is a major key to understanding speciation in birds. Examples of ecological speciation can be found in birds, and the constant interaction of birds with their biotic environment also contributes to evolutionary changes. In the Anthropocene, birds are confronted with rapid changes that are highly threatening for some species. Climate change forces birds to move their ranges, but may also disrupt well-established interactions between climate, vegetation, and food sources.

This book brings together various disciplines involved in observing bird species come into existence, modify, and vanish. It is a rich resource for bird enthusiasts who want to understand various processes at the cutting edge of current research in more detail. At the same time it offers students the opportunity to see primarily unconnected, but booming big-data approaches such as genomics and biogeography meet in a topic of broad interest. Lastly, the book enables conservationists to better understand the uncertainties surrounding “species” as entities of protection.