Walk, swim or fly? Locomotor mode predicts genetic differentiation in vertebrates
- Journal:
- Ecology Letters
- Published:
- DOI:
- 10.1111/ele.12930
- Affiliations:
- 4
- Authors:
- 3
Research Highlight
Getting a leg up in biodiversity
© Anup Shah/DigitalVision/Getty
The greater
degree of biodiversity found on land compared to the oceans may be a function
of how organisms in those environments get around.
An Australian
team, including researchers from the University of New South Wales, collected
published information on the locomotion mode and genetic diversity of 1,150
vertebrate species, including birds, fish, mammals and reptiles.
They found
that species that walked tended to have higher levels of genetic differentiation
— genetic
differences between geographically separate populations — compared to species that
swam or flew. The discovery could explain why around 80 per cent of all living species are
found on land, which accounts for only 30 per cent of the Earth’s surface.
Researchers
suggested that vertebrate species that walk don’t travel as far or as fast as
those that swim or fly, so genetic differentiation occurs over much shorter
geographic distances, and therefore more frequently.
References
- Ecology Letters 21, 638–645 (2018). doi: 10.1111/ele.12930
Institutions | Authors | Share |
---|---|---|
University of New South Wales (UNSW Sydney), Australia | 0.50 | |
Australian National University (ANU), Australia | 0.17 | |
The University of Melbourne (UniMelb), Australia | 0.17 | |
Australian Museum, Australia | 0.17 |