For the past decade or so, Jason Weir has travelled into the Amazon rainforest to play songs to hundreds of birds.
The Amazon is home to a massive number of species, leading many to believe that species evolve faster in the tropical region. But Weir’s research on birds has found the opposite – species in the Amazon evolve slower than species at higher latitudes.
“One of the key questions we’re trying to understand is: Why do we have so many species in the tropics?” says Weir, a professor in the department of biological sciences at the University of Toronto Scarborough. “Species richness can be generated by many, many factors and in the Amazon, it doesn’t appear to be fast rates of evolution like we commonly assume.”
Weir’s research, which brought him face-to-face with jaguars, vipers and botflies, is published in a new study co-written with Trevor Price from the University of Chicago and funded by the National Geographic Society.
Continue reading at University of Toronto.
Image via Joao Quental - Flickr.