What is adaptive radiation? Explain with the help of a suitable example.

Explanation

Adaptive radiation. The process of evolution of different species in a given geographical area starting from a point and literally radiating to other areas of geography (habitats) is called adaptive radiation.
Example. Australian marsupials. A number of marsupials, each different from other evolved from an ancestral stock, but all within the Australian island continent. When more than one adaptive

radiation appeared to have occurred in an isolated geographical area (representing different habitats), then it is called as convergent evolution or parallel evolution. Placental mammals in Australia also exhibit adaptive radiation in evolving into varieties of such placental mammals each of which appears to be .similar to a corresponding marsupials (placental wolf and Tasmanian wolf-marsupial).