Speciation in Birds begins with a justification for using birds to study the subject of speciation. The introduction and the entire volume are successful in this endeavor. As the author points out, birds have been heavily studied in the key works on speciation, from Darwin onward. As discussed in the first chapter, genetic studies of speciation (Dobzhansky 1951; Coyne and Orr 2004) do not include as much research on birds, but that does not detract from the thorough grounding that Speciation in Birds will impart to the general audience, even while it provides original research of interest to the professional evolutionary biologist. The text broadly covers geographic and ecological factors affecting speciation, including an illustration of how they form a spectrum of possible factors, rather than two mutually exclusive possibilities. Then the book expands into social selection (including sexual selection), tying both of these into a geographic and ecological framework, and finishes with a discussion of hybrids, hybrids zones, and genetic incompatibility.
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机译：鸟类的物种形成始于使用鸟类研究物种形成主题的理由。在此过程中，介绍和全部内容都很成功。正如作者指出的那样，从达尔文开始，在鸟类物种形成的关键著作中对鸟类进行了大量研究。如第一章所述，物种形成的遗传学研究（Dobzhansky 1951; Coyne and Orr 2004）并未包括对鸟类的大量研究，但这并没有损害鸟类的形成会为普通观众所接受的充分基础。同时为专业进化生物学家提供了有趣的原始研究。本书广泛涵盖影响物种形成的地理和生态因素，包括说明它们如何形成一系列可能的因素，而不是两个相互排斥的可能性。然后，本书扩展到社会选择（包括性选择），将两者都纳入地理和生态框架，最后讨论杂种，杂种区和遗传不相容性。
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