TY - JOUR AU - McGee, Matthew D. AU - Schluter, Dolph AU - Wainwright, Peter C. PY - 2013 DA - 2013/12/31 TI - Functional basis of ecological divergence in sympatric stickleback JO - BMC Evolutionary Biology SP - 277 VL - 13 IS - 1 AB - The evolution of ecological divergence in closely related species is a key component of adaptive radiation. However, in most examples of adaptive radiation the mechanistic basis of ecological divergence remains unclear. A classic example is seen in the young benthic and limnetic stickleback species pairs of British Columbia. In each pair the benthic species feeds on littoral macroinvertebrates whereas the limnetic feeds on pelagic zooplankton. Previous studies indicate that in both short-term feeding trials and long-term enclosure studies, benthics and limnetics exhibit enhanced performance on their own resource but fare more poorly on the other species’ resource. We examined the functional basis of ecological divergence in the stickleback species pair from Paxton Lake, BC, using biomechanical models of fish feeding applied to morphological traits. We examined the consequences of morphological differences using high speed video of feeding fish. SN - 1471-2148 UR - https://doi.org/10.1186/1471-2148-13-277 DO - 10.1186/1471-2148-13-277 ID - McGee2013 ER -