hello everyone,

I just published this piece that discusses a truly lovely paper about
Himalayan songbirds. This paper finds that competition for ecological
niches (NOT reproductive isolation) affects the rate of speciation in
songbirds. It also finds that, as these niches fill up with species, the
rate of speciation slows or stops altogether. there are lots of other
interesting nuances that this leads to, which are also mentioned in the
piece:

http://www.theguardian.com/science/grrlscientist/2014/aug/14/birds-evolution-phylogeny-speciation-ecology-himalayas?view=classic

of course, it includes lots of pretty pictures of gorgeous songbirds --
including one astonishingly rare songbird that none of us have ever seen --
along with lots of breathtaking pics of the himalayas that make me want
very much to visit! (i may try to weasel my way into the next expedition,
to document everything, of course!)

cheers,

--
GrrlScientist
Devorah Bennu, PhD
http://www.grrlscientist.net/
http://twitter.com/GrrlScientist
http://www.theguardian.com/science/grrlscientist
<http://www.guardian.co.uk/grrlscientist>
*sunt lacrimae rerum et mentem mortalia tangunt. [*Virgil, *Aeneid*, 1.461
ff.]
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