Wednesday April 29, 2026
UC Davis —
Why are there so many of species of coral reef fish? According to a new study, it’s because about 50 million years ago, some fish figured out how to bite food from hard surfaces.
Evolution doesn’t proceed at an even pace: Species evolve in jumps and spurts, followed by lulls. These periods of rapid diversification usually occur after a dramatic environmental change or upheaval, or when a lineage develops a new “innovation” that allows them to use a previously inaccessible resource. For fish, the ability to feed from a hard surface was one such innovation.
In a study published April 13 in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, University of California, Davis, researchers show that fish lineages that acquired the ability to scrape algae, snails and shellfish from hard surfaces evolved in more diverse ways than fish living higher in the water column, where there are no hard surfaces to feed from.