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    Home > Food News > Food Articles > Scientists determine the lower area at which new species form

    Scientists determine the lower area at which new species form

    • Last Update: 2021-03-10
    • Source: Internet
    • Author: User
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    found three close relatives of the worm-eating Filipino mice, biologists have confirmed that species formation can occur on smaller islands.
    a long-standing mystery in biology: What is the minimum amount of land needed to evolve a new mammal? Since the 1980s, researchers have believed that the floor is 110,000 square kilometers -- about the size of Cuba. Today, a team of scientists has concluded that only one-10 of that area can be achieved. The findings are good news for conservationists and others worried that climate change and habitat loss are accelerating species extinction.
    to determine the floor area, the team turned to the islands, which are often ideal laboratories. The researchers were able to determine which animals had been there and who had evolved there. Lawrence Heaney, an evolutionary biometrician at the Field Museum of Natural History in Chicago, has been working to classify mammal diversity on Luzon, the largest island in the Philippines. He found that 66 species of mammals (excluding bats) live on the 105,000-square-kilometer island. He believes that smaller islands could certainly diversify new species. To this end, he and his colleagues found such a place. They landed on The Island of Mindullo, the seventh largest island in the Philippines.
    2013, researchers began counting all the mammals there, including rats, mice and dwarf buffaloes. They set up live animal traps on five mountains on the island of Mindullo to catch smaller mammals, including a locally-specific long-nosed rat that feeds on crickets. The scientists focused their initial analysis on the mice. After comparing their DNA and appearance, the researchers realized that the mice represented four different species -- three living in mountains and one in the lowlands below.
    , genetic analysis showed that all four species evolved from an ancestor who landed on the island of Mandullo about 2.8 million years ago. This means that the island is the smallest place ever recorded to have evolved a new mammal. Heaney and colleagues reported the findings
    published in a recently published paper.
    , a biometrician at the University of Kansas who was not involved in the study, said he was not involved in the study 
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