Speciation in Birds

摘要

Trevor Price is a brave man. In writing a book on speciation in birds, Price faces inevitable comparisons with larger-than-life evolutionary biologist Ernst Mayr, who was "first and foremost an ornithologist" (1). Mayr's studies of bird species formed the basis for many of his ideas about speciation and provided the foundation for his influential monographs on animal speciation (2,3). Speciation in Birds also has the misfortune of appearing shortly after comprehensive and critically acclaimed treatments of speciation (4) and speciation theory (5). These are hard acts to follow.