1. Extreme weather events, such as hurricanes, can be ecologically devastating and cause widespread mortality. Recent studies in Anolis lizards report hurricaneinduced phenotypic shifts and selection favouring morphological variation related to clinging performance. Although it is difficult to observe organismal responses during extreme events in nature, we can experimentally simulate the high-speed winds associated with hurricanes to evaluate the putative mechanism underlying observed patterns of natural selection.2. In this study, we used two laboratory experiments to better understand the clinging performance and behaviour of Anolis lizards when experiencing hurricaneforce winds. We assessed the physical ability of lizards when using the combined function of their claws, limbs, toepads and other traits to resist forces pulling them off a perch. We also evaluated the combination of this physical clinging ability of lizards and their behavioural responses to avoid being blown off a perch during high winds. We assessed behaviour that could decrease exposure of lizards to wind and increase their clinging ability.3. Clinging force measurements revealed variation in performance among species and substrates not reflected in clinging times for lizards experiencing hurricaneforce winds, revealing the importance of behaviour when experiencing high winds. The most arboreal species (A. carolinensis) had substantially longer clinging times on rough substrates compared with the other species, presumably due to its larger toepads for increased clinging as well as its shorter limbs that reduced drag.4. Under high-speed winds, lizards commonly shifted to the more protected leeward side of dowels, especially on broad and rough substrates, presumably to reduce exposure. This reveals how behaviour can mediate factors influencing clinging ability during hurricanes and, in conjunction with ecologically relevant variation in morphology and substrate properties, contribute to clinging performance. 5. Our experiments reveal that behaviour strongly influences clinging performance during high winds beyond that predicted by physical traits alone. Thus, microhabitat selection of perches and the position of a lizard on its perch during a
Extreme body elongation has occurred repeatedly in the evolutionary history of ray‐finned fishes. Lengthening of the anterior‐posterior body axis relative to depth and width can involve changes in the cranial skeleton and vertebral column, but to what extent is anatomical evolution determined by selective factors and intrinsic constraints that are shared broadly among closely related lineages? In this study, we fit adaptive (Ornstein‐Uhlenbeck) evolutionary models to body shape and its anatomical determinants and identified two instances of extreme elongation by divergent anatomical peak shifts in the Blenniiformes, a radiation of small‐bodied substrate‐associated marine teleost fishes. Species in the genus Xiphasia (hairtail blennies) evolved toward a peak defined by a highly elongated caudal vertebral region but ancestral cranial and precaudal vertebral morphology. In contrast, a clade that includes the genera Chaenopsis and Lucayablennius (pike and arrow blennies) evolved toward a peak with a long slender skull but ancestral axial skeletal anatomy. Neither set of anatomical peak shifts aligns closely with the major axis of anatomical diversification in other blenniiform fishes. These results provide little evidence that ancestral constraints have affected body shape transformation, and instead suggest that extreme elongation arose with distinct shifts in selective factors and development.
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