Evolutionary biology of the genus Phoenicurus

Evolutionary Biology is one, if not the most, important and fascinating discipline in nature, explaining many biological phenomena. Since Darwin there have been many debates about the driving evolutionary forces and their mechanisms. Especially today, where many habitats are changing through climatic effects or human activity, microevolutionary aspects like natural hybridisation are in the focus of scientific research. Like horizontal gene-transfer in micro-organisms, hybridisation enables complex life forms to get access to the genepool of other organisms and as a result meet faster environmental challenges. The former opinion that natural hybridisation is a rare and unimportant side-effect in nature has changed during the past decades and several studies have shown that many hybrids are fertile and able to compete with their parent species, especially under changing environmental conditions. As an example, this book presents a study about 14 members of the bird genera Phoenicurus (Redstarts), Rhyacornis (Water-Redstarts) and Chaimarrornis, which are found in Europe and Asia with concentrations in the Caucasus and the Himalayas, where up to 6 live sympatrically. A combination of field studies (with expeditions to Central Asia, the Middle East and Europe), classical methods (comparing morphology, behaviour etc.), breeding experiments (hybridisation and backcrossing) and biochemical tools (gene-sequencing and microsatellite-analysis) enabled to detect natural Hybridisation in populations in East Turkey and Central Asia and to show the effect and consequences of cross-specific geneflow.