While Darwin had provided the clue about where to see evolution, he thought any observations of change would be minute: big changes would take millions of years. We found change happened much quicker. The evolutionary process that Darwin outlined is character displacement (or divergence) caused by competition with another species. Over a period of nearly 30 years we were able to see the average beak and body size of the population of one of Daphne’s main finch species, the medium ground finch (Geospiza fortis), become smaller after its larger members were out-competed for food by another invading finch species during a drought.
— Read on www.theguardian.com/science/article/2024/jul/21/rosemary-grant-peter-grant-charles-darwin-finches-evolutionary-biology-princeton-one-step-sideways-three-steps-forward-memoir
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