If I’m following, the gist is that more biodiversity causes species to specialize rather than generalize.
Is that really so unexpected?
To my understanding, yes. They are talking specifically about rattlesnakes and their venom, and a possible paradigm shift in general.
As it says in the article:
Rather than developing more complex toxins for a wide variety of potential prey, as the researchers assumed, the rattlesnakes were instead producing simpler venoms containing fewer and more focused venoms.
We expected that snakes in areas with more biodiversity would have more complex venoms because they’re eating more of that available diversity.
We initially hypothesized that the larger islands would be associated with more complex venoms, however we found the opposite pattern.
Edit: Several stuff to make things clearer
Interesting. They were expecting the additional diversity of the food web in these areas to lead to the snakes evolving more universally deadly venom.
I think it stands to reason that in an environment with a large variety of food the snake would develop some type of preference or be limited by their own capabilities to hunt certain prey. The venom is tailored to have the strongest effect on the prey most likely to be caught.
A diverse biome could create a larger potential for diverse feeding habits, but who’s to say snakes don’t just prefer eating birds or whatever when they have the freedom to choose which prey they value most?
Very cool study, I’ll be interested to see what comes from this
This really isn’t unexpected, though. Focus on the venom for the most available prey. A more generalized, complicated venom requires more energy, so don’t do that.
How is this “challenge evolution”?
There’s already so many animals out there that only eat one specific type of leaf for whatever reason, and it’s not to do with lack of other leafs. I never thought about it before, but it makes sense in hindsight.
