Thirty years of evolution in Darwinʹs finches

Long-term evolutionary studies potentially shed light on a range of important topics. This is certainly the case in a recent summary of a remarkable 30-year evolutionary study of Darwinʹs finches by Peter and Rosemary Grant. In addition to documenting selection and evolution, this work indicates that hybridization might be an important source of new genetic material for selection to act on, but introgression can potentially lead to species merging into single undifferentiated genetic units.