Linking ecological specialization to its macroevolutionary consequences: An example with passerine nest type

A long-standing hypothesis in evolutionary biology is that the evolution of resource specialization can lead to an evolutionary dead end, where specialists have low diversification rates and limited ability to evolve into generalists. In recent years, advances in comparative methods investigating trait-based differences associated with diversification have enabled more robust tests of this idea and have found mixed support. We test the evolutionary dead end hypothesis by estimating net diversification rate differences associated with nest site specialization among 3,224 species of passerine birds. In particular, we test whether the adoption of hole-nesting, a nest site specialization that decreases predation, results in reduced diversification rates relative to nesting outside of holes. Further, we examine whether evolutionary transitions to the specialist hole-nesting state have been more frequent than transitions out of hole-nesting. Using diversification models that accounted for bac..., , - Text editor
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- RevBayes