A Phylogenetic Test for Adaptive Convergence in Rock-Dwelling Lizards

Revell, Liam J.; Johnson, Michele A.; Schulte, James A.; Kolbe, Jason J.; Losos, Jonathan B.

doi:10.1111/j.1558-5646.2007.00225.x

Cited by 129 publications

(162 citation statements)

References 64 publications

(66 reference statements)

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“…Such matching, however, remains to be demonstrated: although divergence into benthic and pelagic ecomorphs has occurred along the same morphological axes (e.g., body size and depth and gill raker number) in many different fish families, it is not clear that all pelagic ecomorphs, regardless of ancestry, are more similar to each other than each is to their more closely related benthic counterparts. The alternative possibility is that differentiation, even though occurring in the same general way in each case, has not been great enough to erase preexisting differences among clades (Stayton 2006;Revell et al 2007).…”

Section: Replicated Adaptive Radiation Usually Occurs Amongmentioning

confidence: 99%

Adaptive Radiation, Ecological Opportunity, and Evolutionary Determinism

Losos

2010

The American Naturalist

543

602

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Adaptive radiation refers to diversification from an ancestral species that produces descendants adapted to use a great variety of distinct ecological niches. In this review, I examine two aspects of adaptive radiation: first, that it results from ecological opportunity and, second, that it is deterministic in terms of its outcome and evolutionary trajectory. Ecological opportunity is usually a prerequisite for adaptive radiation, although in some cases, radiation can occur in the absence of preexisting opportunity. Nonetheless, many clades fail to radiate although seemingly in the presence of ecological opportunity; until methods are developed to identify and quantify ecological opportunity, the concept will have little predictive utility in understanding a priori when a clade might be expected to radiate. Although predicted by theory, replicated adaptive radiations occur only rarely, usually in closely related and poorly dispersing taxa found in the same region on islands or in lakes. Contingencies of a variety of types may usually preclude close similarity in the outcome of evolutionary diversification in other situations. Whether radiations usually unfold in the same general sequence is unclear because of the unreliability of methods requiring phylogenetic reconstruction of ancestral events. The synthesis of ecological, phylogenetic, experimental, and genomic advances promises to make the coming years a golden age for the study of adaptive radiation; natural history data, however, will always be crucial to understanding the forces shaping adaptation and evolutionary diversification.

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Section: Replicated Adaptive Radiation Usually Occurs Amongmentioning

confidence: 99%

Adaptive Radiation, Ecological Opportunity, and Evolutionary Determinism

Losos

2010

The American Naturalist

543

602

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“…Examples of lizard species that have repeatedly adapted to rock environments and converged in limb length and head depth, have been reported previously (i.e. [47]). However, the frequency of convergence within this recent radiation of Cryptoblepharus is striking and likely correlated with the rapid spread across the Australian continent.…”

Section: (B) Convergencementioning

confidence: 99%

Convergence across a continent: adaptive diversification in a recent radiation of Australian lizards

Blom

Horner²,

Moritz

2016

Proc. R. Soc. B.

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Recent radiations are important to evolutionary biologists, because they provide an opportunity to study the mechanisms that link micro-and macroevolution. The role of ecological speciation during adaptive radiation has been intensively studied, but radiations can arise from a diversity of evolutionary processes; in particular, on large continental landmasses where allopatric speciation might frequently precede ecological differentiation. It is therefore important to establish a phylogenetic and ecological framework for recent continental-scale radiations that are species-rich and ecologically diverse. Here, we use a genomic (approx. 1 200 loci, exon capture) approach to fit branch lengths on a summary-coalescent species tree and generate a time-calibrated phylogeny for a recent and ecologically diverse radiation of Australian scincid lizards; the genus Cryptoblepharus. We then combine the phylogeny with a comprehensive phenotypic dataset for over 800 individuals across the 26 species, and use comparative methods to test whether habitat specialization can explain current patterns of phenotypic variation in ecologically relevant traits. We find significant differences in morphology between species that occur in distinct environments and convergence in ecomorphology with repeated habitat shifts across the continent. These results suggest that isolated analogous habitats have provided parallel ecological opportunity and have repeatedly promoted adaptive diversification. By contrast, speciation processes within the same habitat have resulted in distinct lineages with relatively limited morphological variation. Overall, our study illustrates how alternative diversification processes might have jointly stimulated species proliferation across the continent and generated a remarkably diverse group of Australian lizards.

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“…Two previous studies have considered the possible footprint of evolutionary history on converging taxa: Stayton [5] presented a method to compare sister taxa, and Revell et al [14] presented a phylogenetic method to compare distantly related species that independently colonized the same microhabitat from different ancestral starting points. Our test examines whether taxa within a single radiation (i.e.…”

Section: (B) Role Of Conservatismmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…However, few studies have tested the importance of both processes [7,12], and none, to our knowledge, have done so across continents. Furthermore, most studies have focused on morphology [13,14]. Nevertheless, whole-organism performance traits (e.g.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Evolutionary conservatism and convergence both lead to striking similarity in ecology, morphology and performance across continents in frogs

2013

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Many clades contain ecologically and phenotypically similar species across continents, yet the processes generating this similarity are largely unstudied, leaving fundamental questions unanswered. Is similarity in morphology and performance across assemblages caused by evolutionary convergence or by biogeographic dispersal of evolutionarily conserved ecotypes? Does convergence to new ecological conditions erase evidence of past adaptation? Here, we analyse ecology, morphology and performance in frog assemblages from three continents (Asia, Australia and South America), assessing the importance of dispersal and convergent evolution in explaining similarity across regions. We find three striking results. First, species using the same microhabitat type are highly similar in morphology and performance across both clades and continents. Second, some species on different continents owe their similarity to dispersal and evolutionary conservatism (rather than evolutionary convergence), even over vast temporal and spatial scales. Third, in one case, an ecologically specialized ancestor radiated into diverse ecotypes that have converged with those on other continents, largely erasing traces of past adaptation to their ancestral ecology. Overall, our study highlights the roles of both evolutionary conservatism and convergence in explaining similarity in species traits over large spatial and temporal scales and demonstrates a statistical framework for addressing these questions in other systems.

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A Phylogenetic Test for Adaptive Convergence in Rock-Dwelling Lizards

Abstract: Phenotypic similarity of species occupying similar habitats has long been taken as strong evidence of adaptation, but this approach implicitly assumes that similarity is evolutionarily derived. However, even derived similarities may not represent con-

Cited by 129 publications

References 64 publications

Adaptive Radiation, Ecological Opportunity, and Evolutionary Determinism

Adaptive Radiation, Ecological Opportunity, and Evolutionary Determinism

Convergence across a continent: adaptive diversification in a recent radiation of Australian lizards

Evolutionary conservatism and convergence both lead to striking similarity in ecology, morphology and performance across continents in frogs

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