Evolutionary radiation in canids following continental colonizations.

Colonization of a new environment may trigger an evolutionary radiation, defined as an accelerated accumulation of species in a short period of time. However, how often colonization events trigger such radiations is still an open question. We studied the worldwide dispersal of Caninae to investigate whether the invasion of new continents resulted in elevated species diversification.

Habitat productivity is a poor predictor of body size in rodents.

The "resource availability hypothesis" predicts occurrence of larger rodents in more productive habitats. This prediction was tested in a dataset of 1,301 rodent species. We used adult body mass as a measure of body size and normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI) as a measure of habitat productivity.