Research
I am broadly interested in evolutionary biology, particularly in the mechanisms that promote species diversification, both intrinsic and extrinsic. Until now, my work has focused on bird Macroevolution, but I am anxious to apply other tools and perspectives. I am very interested in the tempo and mode of phenotypic evolution, phylogeography, adaptive radiations, and phylogenetic comparative methods. I am an enthusiast of the connection between field work and museums.
Hummingbird speciation and color evolution
Many hypotheses try to explain why some clades show a greater variety of forms and species than others. One particularly interesting idea is that phenotypic evolution and the rate of speciation may be coupled by either sexual or natural selection. Using hummingbirds, and the most complete database of color reflectance to date, I showed that color evolution rates are correlated with the rate of speciation, regardless of sex and body patch (Beltrán et al. 2021). These findings highlight the importance of both sexual and natural selection in shaping hummingbird color evolution, and that both sexes have equally contributed to color diversity in this family. (MSc. first chapter)
The colors of the forests and hummingbird plumage color divergence
Are signaling traits context-dependent? One fascinating hypothesis in birds and vertebrates posits that these organisms use signaling traits according to the environment in which they occur, this question connects evolution and ecology in the most interesting way. In the second chapter of my MSc. thesis, I showed that hummingbird color divergence is affected by the color of the background in which species live, and that this relationship changes depending on the body patch and the behavioral function of these colors.
The evolution of hummingbird dimorphic traits along environmental gradients
According to the theory of sexual selection, signaling traits usually considered the by-product of mate selection are thought to evolve either in tandem, as a form of signal reinforcement, or traded-off against each other due to metabolic costs imposed by natural selection. In this project, in collaboration with incredible scientists Juan Luis Parra, Alejandro Rico-Guevara, Marcelo Araya-Salas and Gary Stiles, we evaluate if multiple dimorphic traits such as morphological dimorphism, dichromatism, and song complexity are co-dependently evolving, traded-off against one another, or evolving independently, whilst considering their interactions with habitat structure and altitude.