Independent evolutionary lineages often display similar characteristics in comparable environments. Three kinds of historical hypotheses could explain this convergence. The first is adaptive and evolutionary: nonrandom patterns may result from analogous evolutionary responses to shared conditions. The second explanation is exaptive and ecological: species may be filtered by their suitability for a particular type of environment. The third potential explanation is a null hypothesis of random colonization from a historically nonrandom source pool. Here we demonstrate that both exaptation and adaptation have produced convergent similarity in different size-related characters of solitary island lizards. Large sexual size dimorphism results from adaptive response to solitary existence; uniform, intermediate size results from ecological filtering of potential colonizers. These results demonstrate the existence of deterministic exaptive convergence and suggest that convergent phenomena may require historical explanations that are ecological as well as evolutionary.
The distributions and characteristics of naturalized species may be explained by novel anthropogenous aspects of world biogeography such as the creation of favorable transport environments for propagules on ships. Conversely, the unprecedented connectivity of humans may simply accelerate omnipresent ecological and evolutionary forces, for example, ships may allow species that are generally good dispersers to disperse more quickly. As a null hypothesis, there may be no human component to species naturalization. The first hypothesis predicts that naturalized species will possess unusual characteristics specific to interactions with humans. The latter two hypotheses predict similarity between ancient colonizers and recently naturalized species. In this article, we present a test of the latter hypotheses and show how they may be reconciled with the former. We show that species of Anolis Invasive species are a global concern due to resulting economic losses and extinction of indigenous wildlife. Much of invasion biology focuses on identifying common characteristics of invasions, including intrinsic (e.g., asexual reproduction) (Rejmanek and Richardson 1996) and extrinsic (e.g., suitable habitat for invasion) (Williamson 1996) factors, with two goals in mind (Rice and Sax 2005). First, such information may be used to erect a predictive framework of likely invasive species for conservation, health, and economic purposes. Second, knowledge of the characteristics of recent invaders may give insight into general ecological and evolutionary processes.In this article, we examine whether the reverse inference, of evolutionary biology informing invasion biology, is also possible. We studied an ancient evolutionary colonization pattern, the so-called "solitary" Anolis lizards, to gain insight into the characteristics that determine recent naturalization success. We study naturalization-the establishment of a population outside of its native range, rather than invasion
A striking new species of Anolis lizard (Squamata, Iguania) from Panama. Here we describe a new Anolis lizard from Panama. The new form is most similar to South American Anolis mirus and Anolis parilis but differs in characters of color pattern and scalation. The new species appears to be a close relative of other large mainland Alpha Anolis (latifrons group; "Dactyloa").Keywords: Squamata, Iguania, Anolis kunayalae sp. nov., systematics, Panama. ResumenUna especie nueva y llamativa de lagartija Anolis (Squamata, Iguania) de Panamá. Aquí describimos una especie nueva de lagartija Anolis de Panamá. Esta forma nueva es más similar a Anolis mirus y A. parilis de América del Sur, pero difiere en caracteres del patrón de color y de escamas. La especie nueva parece ser un pariente cercano de otras Anolis Alfa grandes de tierra firme (grupo latifrons; Dactyloa).
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