Hannah E. A. MacGregor

TL;DR: It is shown that elevated levels of sexual selection are associated with more rapid phenotypic divergence between related lineages, and that this effect is restricted to male plumage traits proposed to function in mate choice and species recognition.

TL;DR: Variation of hand-wing index in over 10,000 bird species is examined, finding that it is higher in migratory and non-territorial species, and lower in the tropics, and also a strong predictor of geographical range size.

TL;DR: The AVONET dataset as discussed by the authors contains comprehensive functional trait data for all birds, including six ecological variables, 11 continuous morphological traits, and information on range size and location, from 90,020 individuals of 11,009 extant bird species sampled from 181 countries.

TL;DR: The findings suggest that local extinctions caused by the loss and degradation of tropical forest are non-random with respect to functional traits, thus disrupting the network of trophic interactions regulating seed dispersal by forest birds and herbivory by insects, with important implications for the structure and resilience of human-modified tropical forests.

TL;DR: This study illustrates how divergence in sexually selected traits via male competition can determine the direction and extent of introgression, contributing to geographic patterns of genetic and phenotypic diversity.