For the sake of the question, let's say that a population of piscivorous birds are put in a Europe-sized box. Half of the box is sea, populated with their diet of fish and crabs and cephalopods, and the other half is open steppe filled with grasses, bushes and small insects. Assuming there is nothing else to compete for the open terrestrial niches, how long would it take for these birds to diversify into insectivores, seed-eaters and herbivores respectively? I imagine it'd take very little time for them to become insectivorous, but I don't have a general frame of reference for how long it'd take for herbivory to develop.
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Although it may not appear so immediately, I think this is likely a duplicate of: https://biology.stackexchange.com/questions/35532/why-do-some-bad-traits-evolve-and-good-ones-dont – Bryan Krause Mar 29 '24 at 17:28
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Have a look at the first sentence in the Modern Research section on Darwin's Finches and read the linked article from there... – bob1 Mar 29 '24 at 19:09