一群小鸟在迁徙途中遇到了风暴,被强劲的气流鬼使神差地带到了远离大陆的群岛中。它们的后代适应了这孤立的岛屿环境中的不同生态位,从而枝分叶散,快速分化成多个形态和习性迥异的鸟种。这一过程在演化生物学上被形象地称为适应性辐射。而提到鸟类在岛屿上的适应性辐射,大家首先想到的恐怕是生活在太平洋东部的加拉帕格斯群岛的地雀。达尔文曾经研究过它们,它们也为达尔文以自然选择为基础的进化论提供了鲜活的例证。而生活在太平洋中部夏威夷群岛的夏威夷管舌雀虽不如加拉帕格斯地雀有名,但其物种远比后 A group of small birds encountered a storm on their way to the trek, dragged by the strong air currents to the archipelago far from the mainland. Their descendants adapted to different niche in this isolated island environment, thus branches and leaves scattered, rapid differentiation into a number of bird species with different forms and habits. This process is figuratively called adaptive radiation in evolutionary biology. And referring to the adaptive radiation of birds on the island, we first think of probably living in the Pacific Ocean east of the Galapagos Islands. Darwin studied them once, and they also provide fresh examples of Darwinian evolutionary theory based on natural selection. The Hawaiian tongue birds living in the Central Pacific Ocean, though not as famous as the Galapagos, but their species is far behind