What is adaptive radiation?
Q: What is adaptive radiation?
A: Adaptive radiation is a rapid evolutionary process that increases the number and diversity of species in each lineage, producing more new species that live in a wider range of habitats.
Q: How does adaptive radiation work?
A: Adaptive radiation works by groups diversifying to fill available habitats and niches, which is an evolutionary process driven by natural selection.
Q: Who introduced the term "adaptive radiation"?
A: The term was introduced and discussed by George Gaylord Simpson, the palaeontologist who contributed to the modern evolutionary synthesis.
Q: Is there any other terminology used for adaptive radiation?
A: Robert L Carroll prefers to use the term major evolutionary transitions, though it turns out that all or most of these could also be described as adaptive radiations. Others use terms like macroevolution, or even megaevolution, as if the processes are different from those which occur below species level.
Q: Does adaptive radiation take place at population level?
A: Yes, it is part of evolutionary theory that all processes take place at the level of populations.
Q: What was one example of early metazoan radiation?
A: The Ediacaran biota were an example of early metazoan radiation.
Q: When did the greatest animal phyla evolve?
A: The greatest animal phyla evolved during the Cambrian period when most phyla underwent rapid radiation simultaneously due to availability of ecological niches and relative little competition.
