Do Speciation Rates Drive Rates of Body Size Evolution in Mammals?

Monroe, Melanie J.; Bokma, Folmer

doi:10.1086/646606

Cited by 25 publications

(20 citation statements)

References 53 publications

(62 reference statements)

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“…Body size evolution appears faster on islands because of longer branches in the mainland clades and a punctuational mode of evolution diffused across the tree. Because we found that size evolution in mammals is predominantly speciational (in agreement with Mattila and Bokma 2008; Monroe and Bokma 2009; and Cooper and Purvis 2010) these branch lengths differences artificially produce high expectation for the covariance in body size between mainland species (Thomas et al 2009). We propose that when directional evolution takes place it can be extremely fast on both islands and the mainland (Smith et al 1995; Meiri et al 2009).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 62%

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The Tempo and Mode of Evolution: Body Sizes of Island Mammals

Raia

Meiri

2011

Evolution

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The tempo and mode of body size evolution on islands are believed to be well known. It is thought that body size evolves relatively quickly on islands toward the mammalian modal value, thus generating extreme cases of size evolution and the island rule. Here, we tested both theories in a phylogenetically explicit context, by using two different species-level mammalian phylogenetic hypotheses limited to sister clades dichotomizing into an exclusively insular and an exclusively mainland daughter nodes. Taken as a whole, mammals were found to show a largely punctuational mode of size evolution. We found that, accounting for this, and regardless of the phylogeny used, size evolution on islands is no faster than on the continents. We compared different selection regimes using a set of Ornstein-Uhlenbeck models to examine the effects of insularity of the mode of evolution. The models strongly supported clade-specific selection regimes. Under this regime, however, an evolutionary model allowing insular species to evolve differently from their mainland relatives performs worse than a model that ignores insularity as a factor. Thus, insular taxa do not experience statistically different selection from their mainland relatives. K E Y W O R D S :Body size, islands, κ statistic, Ornstein-Uhlenbeck models, punctuated equilibrium, rates of phenotypic evolution, θ statistic.Islands are often perceived as "natural laboratories" of evolution (Mayr 1967). This is because of their relatively low species richness promoting ecologically "free space," and low immigration rates compared to mainland areas allowing for drastic diversifications and radiations. Moreover, islands are well defined in space making delimiting populations and communities more straightforward, and further, islands provide natural replicates of the same evolutionary experiment, but often with interesting differences (derived from differences in e.g., area, isolation, history and community compositions) that easily lend themselves to analyses. These attributes of islands spawned extensive study of the morphological and ecological trait shifts in insular species as compared to their mainland relatives. The best-known trait shift on islands is probably body size change. Size is strongly correlated with a host of physiological and ecological characteristics (such as life-history traits, metabolic rate, home range, range size, dominance in intraspecific and interspecific encounters), and many other attributes (Peters 1983;Calder 1984;Brown et al. 2000) which make it a trait of utmost importance to both ecologists and evolutionary biologists.Insular mammals often evolve different body sizes than their mainland relatives. The relative tempo and mode of evolution of size on islands, relative to size evolution on the mainland, are believed to be well known: it is often thought that size evolves more quickly on islands than on the mainland (at least over relatively short periods, Millien 2006) and that it evolves toward the mammalian modal value (i.e., the Island

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 62%

“…Raia et al (2010) demonstrated that dwarfism in large (>10 kg) species is indeed common. Monroe and Bokma (2009) showed that, in mammals, body size evolution is faster in large‐bodied lineages older than 5 My. In our phylogeny, only 43 terminal branches are both less than 5‐My long and lead to species weighing more than 10 kg.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Tempo and Mode of Evolution: Body Sizes of Island Mammals

Raia

Meiri

2011

Evolution

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“…The restriction of extremely small-bodied species to particular genera and conservation of body size within these groups suggests that morphological evolution may be constrained at smaller size, which could limit ecological opportunity within small-bodied taxa [52], [59]. Though variance in body size was not correlated with body size (results not shown), in that large-bodied clades do not have higher body size diversity relative to small-bodied clades, evidence for ecomorphological constraint within these small-bodied taxa has been found in Geophagini.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Body Size Diversity and Frequency Distributions of Neotropical Cichlid Fishes (Cichliformes: Cichlidae: Cichlinae)

Steele

López‐Fernández

2014

PLoS ONE

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Body size is an important correlate of life history, ecology and distribution of species. Despite this, very little is known about body size evolution in fishes, particularly freshwater fishes of the Neotropics where species and body size diversity are relatively high. Phylogenetic history and body size data were used to explore body size frequency distributions in Neotropical cichlids, a broadly distributed and ecologically diverse group of fishes that is highly representative of body size diversity in Neotropical freshwater fishes. We test for divergence, phylogenetic autocorrelation and among-clade partitioning of body size space. Neotropical cichlids show low phylogenetic autocorrelation and divergence within and among taxonomic levels. Three distinct regions of body size space were identified from body size frequency distributions at various taxonomic levels corresponding to subclades of the most diverse tribe, Geophagini. These regions suggest that lineages may be evolving towards particular size optima that may be tied to specific ecological roles. The diversification of Geophagini appears to constrain the evolution of body size among other Neotropical cichlid lineages; non-Geophagini clades show lower species-richness in body size regions shared with Geophagini. Neotropical cichlid genera show less divergence and extreme body size than expected within and among tribes. Body size divergence among species may instead be present or linked to ecology at the community assembly scale.

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“…Physiological requirements may result in a single modal optimal body size in some groups (Brown et al ., ; Kozlowski, ; Boback & Guyer, ). This suggests that species selection should generate higher rates of diversification at the optimal body size, thus providing regional and local communities with a source of body sizes centred on this optimum (Monroe & Bokma, ; Rabosky & McCune, ). However, we find no evidence for a higher rate of diversification at a single mode (Fig.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Body size distributions at community, regional or taxonomic scales do not predict the direction of trait‐driven diversification in snakes in the United States

Burbrink

Myers

2013

Global Ecology and Biogeography

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Aim We determine whether trait‐driven diversification yields similar body size distributions for snakes in local, regional and phylogenetic assemblages. Location United States, North America. Methods Using total length and mass, we examine body size frequency distributions (BSFD) across 79 sites and respective biomes to determine if these areas represent random subsamples from the source pools of taxon body sizes. Using QuaSSE, we determine if the most probable model of trait‐driven diversification in the three most common groups of snakes in North America, the ratsnakes, pitvipers and watersnakes, is similar to the predicted regional BSFD. Results BSFD of snakes at the community, biome, regional and clade scales show symmetric distributions of body size. These patterns may simply be generated from random statistical subsampling. Speciation rates are not highest at or near the modal body size and simulations show that linear trait‐driven models can still yield highly symmetric distributions of body size. Main conclusions In this study region, processes such as competition due to size do not alter BSFD from one scale to the other. It is likely that rates of speciation are not highest at the mode in snakes and trait‐driven diversification is not likely to account for a regional pool of body sizes from which local communities are drawn, although persistence of modal body sizes through time could yield regional BSFD.

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Do Speciation Rates Drive Rates of Body Size Evolution in Mammals?

Cited by 25 publications

References 53 publications

The Tempo and Mode of Evolution: Body Sizes of Island Mammals

The Tempo and Mode of Evolution: Body Sizes of Island Mammals

Body Size Diversity and Frequency Distributions of Neotropical Cichlid Fishes (Cichliformes: Cichlidae: Cichlinae)

Body size distributions at community, regional or taxonomic scales do not predict the direction of trait‐driven diversification in snakes in the United States

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