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Further examples of rapid evolutionary radiation can be observed among ammonites, which suffered a series of extinctions from which they repeatedly re-diversified; and trilobites which, during the Cambrian, rapidly evolved into a variety of forms occupying many of the niches exploited by crustaceans today. [11] [12] [13]
In evolutionary biology, adaptive radiation is a process in which organisms diversify rapidly from an ancestral species into a multitude of new forms, particularly when a change in the environment makes new resources available, alters biotic interactions or opens new environmental niches.
The Cambrian explosion (also known as Cambrian radiation [1] or Cambrian diversification) is an interval of time beginning approximately in the Cambrian period of the early Paleozoic, when a sudden radiation of complex life occurred and practically all major animal phyla started appearing in the fossil record.
The Cambrian explosion or Cambrian radiation was the relatively rapid appearance of most major animal phyla around 530 million years ago (mya) in the fossil record, some of which are now extinct. [ 15 ] [ 16 ] [ 17 ] It is the classic example of megaevolution.
A third factor which played a role in the Mesozoic-Cenozoic radiation was the K-Pg extinction, which marked the end of the dinosaurs and, surprisingly, resulted in a massive increase in biodiversity of terrestrial tetrapods, which can almost entirely be attributed to the radiation of mammals. There are multiple things which could have caused ...
The Great Ordovician Biodiversification Event (GOBE), was an evolutionary radiation of animal life throughout [1] the Ordovician period, 40 million years after the Cambrian explosion, [2] whereby the distinctive Cambrian fauna fizzled out to be replaced with a Paleozoic fauna rich in suspension feeder and pelagic animals.
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For example, Albinaria land snails on islands in the Mediterranean [1] and Batrachoseps salamanders from California [2] each include relatively dispersal-limited, and closely related, ecologically similar species often have minimal range overlap, a pattern consistent with allopatric, nonecological speciation.