Sexual selection, speciation and constraints on geographical range overlap in birds is a research paper published in Ecology Letters (2017). On theSindex it has a DataRank of 1.6. It has been cited 81 times, with 70 citing works in its 1-hop citation network.
AbstractThe role of sexual selection as a driver of speciation remains unresolved, not least because we lack a clear empirical understanding of its influence on different phases of the speciation process. Here, using data from 1306 recent avian speciation events, we show that plumage dichromatism (a proxy for sexual selection) does not predict diversification rates, but instead explains the rate at which young lineages achieve geographical range overlap. Importantly, this effect is only significant when range overlap is narrow (< 20%). These findings are consistent with a ‘differential fusion’ model wherein sexual selection reduces rates of fusion among lineages undergoing secondary contact, facilitating parapatry or limited co‐existence, whereas more extensive sympatry is contingent on additional factors such as ecological differentiation. Our results provide a more mechanistic explanation for why sexual selection appears to drive early stages of speciation while playing a seemingly limited role in determining broad‐scale patterns of diversification.
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Base Score Contribution
0.661
From this paper's citation signal
Citation Network Contribution
0.940
From 52 citing papers with measurable signal
Ranked by citation count — the same ordering the engine uses when summing log1p(Cq) over citers.
DataRank blends this paper's own citation count with the influence of the papers that cite it. Here, roughly 41% comes from its base citations and 59% from the citation network (52 citing papers contributed measurable signal).
Citers are pulled from OpenAlex sorted by cited_by_count:descand capped per paper, so when the cap binds we keep the highest-signal references and the score is reproducible across reruns.
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