With the launch of the TEREC blog, I thought it’s great to write about ongoing and upcoming stories on White-eyes. In case you don’t know or simply forgot, here’s the pitch: We want to study these little yellow birdies to learn about avian evolution and how adaptation is facilitated in rapidly changing environments. That said, we want to use the toolboxes in genomics and modeling to learn more about what makes the „great speciator“ (Ernst Mayr) so great.
These yellow guys that form the Genus Zosterops evolve at an unprecedented pace in birds and, in vertebrates, is likely only topped by East African Cichlids. Originated in SE Asia, they colonized large parts of the tropical and subtropical areas in Africa and Oceania and diversified into currently 96 recognized full species and 250+ ssp. Our main focus is on Kenyan sky islands systems, where white-eyes radiated into a mob of lineages of the isolated mountain and continuous lowland habitats.
Needless to say that the next few years will give room for a lot of exciting research on these critters and we will keep you posted on our Zosteromics chronicles about new news, insights, and musings from our research.
If you like yellow birds and want to work with them to learn about adaptation in a changing world check out our project page or write us a message via Zosteromics@ugent.be.