adaptive radiation

nounBiology.

the diversification of an ancestral group of organisms into a variety of related forms specialized to fit different environments or ways of life, each often further diversifying into more specialized types.

Origin of adaptive radiation

First recorded in 1900–05

Words Nearby adaptive radiation

Dictionary.com Unabridged Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023

How to use adaptive radiation in a sentence

Hybridization in cichlid ancestors could even have triggered the adaptive radiations that produced so many species.
New Fish Data Reveal How Evolutionary Bursts Create Species | Elena Renken | December 1, 2020 | Quanta Magazine
This fact confirmed for the researchers that Tanganyika’s cichlids were ideal subjects for testing ideas about adaptive radiation — an evolutionary event in which many diverse species emerge rapidly and adapt to new environmental niches.
New Fish Data Reveal How Evolutionary Bursts Create Species | Elena Renken | December 1, 2020 | Quanta Magazine
This cichlid data set gives a uniquely detailed and rich picture of adaptive radiation, but these patterns may not hold in all cases.
New Fish Data Reveal How Evolutionary Bursts Create Species | Elena Renken | December 1, 2020 | Quanta Magazine

British Dictionary definitions for adaptive radiation

adaptive radiation

noun

evolution of a number of divergent species from a common ancestor, each species becoming adapted to occupy a different environment. This type of evolution occurred in the Tertiary manuals and the Mesozoic reptiles

Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012

Scientific definitions for adaptive radiation

adaptive radiation

[ ə-dăp′tĭv ]

The evolutionary diversification of a species or single ancestral lineage into various forms that are each adaptively specialized to a specific environmental niche. Adaptive radiation generally proceeds most rapidly in environments where there are numerous unoccupied niches or where competition for resources is minimal. See Note at adaptation.

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