The origin, distribution, and function of biological diversity are fundamental themes of
ecology and evolutionary biology. Research on birds has played a major role in the history …

Research in Macaronesia has led to substantial advances in ecology, evolution and
conservation biology. We review the scientific developments achieved in this region, and …

Birds are among the best-studied animal groups, but their prehistoric diversity is poorly
known due to low fossilization potential. Hence, while many human-driven bird extinctions …

A fundamental goal in evolutionary biology is to understand the genetic architecture of
adaptive traits. Using whole-genome data of 3955 of Darwin's finches on the Galápagos …

Humans have been driving a global erosion of species richness for millennia, but the
consequences of past extinctions for other dimensions of biodiversity—functional and …

A lot of what we know about past speciation and extinction dynamics is based on statistically
fitting birth–death processes to phylogenies of extant species. Despite their wide use, the …

Understanding the processes that drive phenotypic diversification and underpin speciation
is key to elucidating how biodiversity has evolved. Although these processes have been …

Pioneer naturalists such as Whewell, Lyell, Humboldt, Darwin and Wallace acknowledged
the interactions between ecological and evolutionary forces, as well as the roles of …

Range size is a universal characteristic of every biological species, and is often assumed to
affect diversification rate. There are strong theoretical arguments that large-ranged species …

The megadiverse plant family Asteraceae forms an iconic component of island floras
including many spectacular radiations, but a global picture of its insular diversity is lacking …