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Colonial breeding and speciation in birds

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Summary

It was recently suggested that bird species which breed colonially might be under stronger sexual selection, have faster rates of evolution and might therefore speciate more rapidly than bird species which do not. If true, then colonial taxa should contain more species than non-colonial taxa, other things being equal. When similarity through common descent is accounted for, there is little evidence for an association between the number of species in a clade and whether it is colonial or not.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Zoology, University of Oxford, South Parks Road, OX1 3PS, Oxford, UK

    Arne Ø. Mooers

  2. Zoological Institute, Copenhagen University, Universitetsparken 15, DK-2100, Copenhagen Ø, Denmark

    Anders Pape Møller

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  1. Arne Ø. Mooers
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  2. Anders Pape Møller
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Mooers, A.Ø., Møller, A.P. Colonial breeding and speciation in birds. Evol Ecol 10, 375–385 (1996). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF01237724

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