When it comes to the biological imperatives of survival and reproduction, nature often finds a way—sometimes more than one way. For a species of flycatcher in the remote Solomon Islands, scientists have so far found at least two genetic pathways leading to the same physical outcome: all-black feathers. This change was no random accident. It was a result of nature specifically selecting for this trait.
When it comes to the biological imperatives of survival and reproduction, nature often finds a way—sometimes more than one way. For a species of flycatcher in the remote Solomon Islands, scientists have so far found at least two genetic pathways leading to the same physical outcome: all-black feathers. This change was no random accident. It was a result of nature specifically selecting for this trait.
The researchers’ new study is published in the journal PLOS Genetics. “The Chestnut-bellied Flycatcher is not as well-known as Darwin’s finches,” said lead author Leonardo Campagna, an evolutionary geneticist at the Cornell Lab of Ornithology. “But this complex of birds has also gone through many evolutionary changes, many of which involve changes in the coloration and patterning of their plumage.”
The scenario: A large population of chestnut-bellied birds lives on one of the bigger islands in the Pacific chain. From there, some birds established new populations on a couple of smaller islands. Over time, birds on the two smaller islands lost their chestnut bellies and became all black. But the birds on each island developed black plumage at different times, from different genetic mutations which moved rapidly through the small island populations.
