9/29/2016 TheSouthHillsCrossbillIsEvolvinginaSeriouslyBizarreWay|WIRED

The South Hills Crossbill Is Evolving in a Seriously

Bizarre Way

A female South Hills crossbillCraig Benkman

In the pine forests of Idaho, a bird called the South Hills crossbill is waging one seriously
bizarre evolutionary war.

Over the last 5,000 years or so, the crossbillso named because the two halves of its bill cross
over each other instead of aligninghas menaced the lodgepole pine, developing an ever-bigger
beak to break into the trees cones and steal its seeds. In response, the tree has evolved ever-
thicker cone scales. And the South Hills crossbill evolves a bigger bill. And the tree responds.
And on and on through the millennia.

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Thats not the weird bit. Species evolving together like this is known as coevolution[1]. Happens
all the time. The weird bit is that the South Hills crossbill may have speciated without
geographic isolationwhich is sort of problematic for traditional evolutionary theory. Because
while the South Hills crossbill was diverging from other crossbills, it did so while those other
crossbills were freely ying through its territory, according to a study published today in
Molecular Ecology. That adds to a growing body of evidence that in certain fascinating cases, you
may not need geographic isolation to get a new species, challenging what was long gospel
among many evolutionary biologists. GaspI know.

Click to Open Overlay Gallery[2]

Southern Idaho, where the South Hills crossbill makes its home. Craig Benkman

Sing Like Nobodys Listening

Typically to get something to speciate, you have to isolate the animal, say, on an island. Over
time, an animal species will diverge genetically from its compatriots on the mainland, since it
cant breed with them and mix genes. You can also get this phenomenon on the mainland, if,
for example, a new river cuts through an ecosystem, dividing a population in two.

But other crossbill species in ltrate the South Hills varietys territory all the time. We catch
them every year, hundreds move through, says University of Wyoming ecologist Craig
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Benkman[3], an author of the study. Some breed, some stay, but most move on. So its not like
there was a geographic isolation.

How on Earth, then, did the South Hill crossbill end up diverging genetically and largely stop
breeding with other crossbills in the absence of isolation? It wasnt a new river that transformed
this ecosystem in southern Idaho: It may have been a bigger phenomenon.

It turns out in the South Hills, based on the pollen fossil record, based on our forest
reconstructions, there was probably very little lodgepole pine forest about 5,000 to 7,000 years
ago, says Benkman. That changed when the climate began to warm and the conifers moved in.
Yet squirrelsa crossbills major competitor for pine seedsnever followed. In the absence of
this competition, it seems the South Hills crossbill initiated a coevolutionary arms race with the
pines. Natural selection would favor pines with thicker scales to keep the birds out, but would
also favor birds with bigger bills that would get the birds in.

Click to Open Overlay Gallery[4]

A female using her characteristic bill to prize open a cone.Craig Benkman

But why wouldnt those other crossbill species get into the population and muddle the genes,
canceling the speciation? The answer might be a certain avian quirk: Birds are totally cliquey.
Crossbills ock together year-round. They watch each other and talk to each other to assess the

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quality of their food. And a ock has a characteristic tone that changes subtly over the
generations. Its a kind of secret code that individuals use to nd food and mates.

So say a population settles into the lodgepole pine forest and develops a variant call. Basically,
that call will just take off and be favored, Benkman says. And given that they ock year-round
and they choose mates in ocks, youre gonna get reproductive isolation, and that appears to be
whats key. Other crossbills arriving from time to time wouldnt know the secret code, and
therefore wouldnt settle into the ock. Gene ow, or the exchange of genes between
populations, will still be possible, though signi cantly limited. Even though the South Hills
crossbill wasnt physically isolated, it was reproductively isolatedjust what you need to get a
new species.

The Origin of Species

More and more, scientists are turning up cases of such divergence without geographic isolation,
and turning up evolutionary dogma in the process. Fish are another example, where you have
sh that are adapted to the bottom of the lake, or deep parts of the lake, or shallow parts of the
lake, or different light environments, says evolutionary biologist Patrik Nosil[5] of the
University of Shef eld.

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Click to Open Overlay Gallery[6]

A male South Hills crossbillCraig Benkman

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A situation like that still allows for gene ow, which from a classical evolutionary perspective
seems like an unlikely way to end up with divergence. It used to be more of a black or white,
you cant diverge with gene ow or you can diverge with gene ow, and I think thats been
loosened, says Nosil. These days, Nosil adds, the big question is this: Most people are
accepting to some extent you can diverge with gene ow, but can you do that to the point where
we actually get different species?

What Benkman and his colleagues say is that yes, the South Hills crossbill is genetically distinct
enough to earn it the honor of being a distinct species. Its genetic work like this that has
transformed the debate over speciation without geographic isolation. Technology means
scientists can look at morphology and prove theres an underlying genetic shift.

But whats to say the South Hills crossbill wasnt at one point geographically isolated in some
way, then moved into Idaho and mixed with other species? Well, remember that Benkman
actually modeled the development of the birds habitat. I think that strengthened this speci c
paper, but it also highlights a larger issue with this debate, says Nosil, which is basically if you
go out in nature and you see two birds or two sh or two insects or whatever in the same area
and they kind of look different, maybe theyre different species, you dont know if theyve
always been in the same area. Benkman has good historical evidence that not only did the
South Hills crossbill diverge without geographic isolation, but it did so as a consequence of its
coevolution with the lodgepole pine.

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Click to Open Overlay Gallery[7]

A closeup of a males beakCraig Benkman

Whats so bizarre about this birds evolution is that its, well, a birdarguably the most mobile
kind of critter out there. Crossbills can y wherever they please, so isolating them is tough. I
think that these studies are interesting in part because its a taxonomic group where we
expected this not to really take place all that often, says biologist Katie Langin, whose own
work[8] has shown that jays in California have also been able to diverge without geographic
isolation. And were increasingly seeing that it can.

If it worked for the South Hills crossbill, who knows how many other less mobile creatures have
done the same? Thats pretty damn exciting for evolutionary biology, not to mention for a little
bird in Idaho with one hell of a monopoly.

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Links

1. http://nosil-lab.group.shef.ac.uk/

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3. http://www.uwyo.edu/benkman/
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5. http://nosil-lab.group.shef.ac.uk/
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8. https://www.wired.com/2015/03/jay-evolving-weird-way/

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