

It can be studied by understanding placental mammals and their marsupial counterparts. Australian Marsupials and Placental MammalsĪdaptive radiation can also be seen in the placental mammals of Australia. Some Interesting Things To Know, Learn, And Share About DNAīelow there are some of the most prominent examples of adaptive radiation that will help you understand the concept of adaptive radiation better and precisely… Examples of Adaptive Radiation Example 1. Speciation is one very important result (consequence) of divergent evolution and adaptive radiation is a type of divergent evolution which highly supports it. In such an evolutionary process, the ancestor species shows various small adaptations to its environment and gradually becomes different from the ancestor species after achieving many of such small adaptations altogether.Īdaptive radiation is a type of Natural Selection that causes divergent evolution.

These new exploitable resources usually occur due to change in the environment, formation of new habitat, destruction of old habitat, change in resource availability, creation of new challenges, or due to the introduction of new environmental niches.Īdaptive radiation is a type of macroevolution because it leads to speciation that is the formation of new species. In adaptive radiation, a population of ancestral species can separate itself into a new habitat, new lifestyle, and new resources to form many separate descendant species populations over the period of millions of years of evolution.Īdaptive radiation usually occurs when the ancestral population of a species gets new exploitable resources. Species of crickets in Hawaii Introduction To Adaptive RadiationĪdaptive radiation is an evolutionary process in which an ancestral form gives rise to new species adapted to new habitats and new ways of life. Darwin’s finches in the Galapagos Islands Australian Marsupials and Placental Mammals
