Last Glacial Maximum led to community-wide population expansion in a montane songbird radiation in highland Papua New Guinea.
Kritika M GargBalaji ChattopadhyayBonny KoaneKaterina SamFrank E RheindtPublished in: BMC evolutionary biology (2020)
The remarkable synchronous timing of population expansions of all three species demonstrates the importance of global cooling cycles in expanding highland habitat. Global cooling cycles have likely had strongly different impacts on tropical montane areas versus boreal and temperate latitudes, leading to population expansions in the former and serious fragmentation in the latter.