Daniel Funk Species Quotations

The fact that the association is statistically significant despite the crudeness of our estimates suggests that the true biological association is very strong. Darwin's famous book was called 'On the Origin of Species,' but it was really about natural selection on traits rather than species formation. Since our study suggests that natural selection is a general cause of species formation, it seems that Darwin chose an appropriate title after all.

This helps fill a big gap that has existed in evolutionary studies. We have known for some time that when species invade a new environment or ecological niche, a common result is the formation of a great diversity of new species. However, we haven't really understood how or whether the process of adaptation generally drives this pattern of species diversification.

There are all these species out there and so few of them are known in intimate detail, so any kind of ecological characterization, through no fault of ecologists, will be limited in accuracy and precision.