Is xenodontine snake reproduction shaped by ancestry, more than by ecology?

Abstract

One of the current challenges of evolutionary ecology is to understand the effects of phylogenetic history (PH) and/or ecological factors (EF) on the life‐history traits of the species. Here, the effects of environment and phylogeny are tested for the first time on the reproductive biology of South American xenodontine snakes. We studied 60% of the tribes of this endemic and most representative clade in a temperate region of South America. A comparative method (canonical phylogenetic ordination—CPO) was used to find the relative contributions of EF and PH upon life‐history aspects of snakes, comparing the reproductive mode, mean fecundity, reproductive potential, and frequency of nearly 1,000 specimens. CPO analysis showed that PH or ancestry explained most of the variation in reproduction, whereas EF explained little of this variation. The reproductive traits under study are suggested to have a strong phylogenetic signal in this clade, the ancestry playing a big role in reproduction. The EF also influenced the reproduction of South American xenodontines, although to a lesser extent. Our finding provides new evidence of how the evolutionary history is embodied in the traits of living species.

Ecological and phylogenetic determinants of life‐history patterns among ten loricariid species

“…In this way, our study supports the hypothesis that phylogenetic history is more important in the determination of life‐history strategies than key ecological factors. This is consistent with studies carried out in fish (Lujan et al ., ; Roa‐Fuentes et al ., ; Vila‐Gispert et al ., ) and other vertebrate groups (Bellini et al ., , ; Cadle & Greene, ; França et al ., ; Kraft et al ., ; Vitt & Pianka, ; Vitt et al ., ; Webb et al ., ), that sustain a strong signature of phylogenetic history on the observed phenotypic patterns of organisms.…”

“…We constructed a phylogenetic matrix coding the clade membership of each species by a set of binary variables (assigning 1 or 0 based on whether species belong to a clade or not, resspectively) and then included this matrix in the phylogenetic canonical analysis (Bellini et al, 2017;Giannini, 2003). This binary coding was employed in place of branch length because not all species included in our study were included in the available phylogeny (Roxo et al, 2019).…”

“…In this way, observing life‐history strategies in a phylogenetic framework allows us to underst the evolutionary origins of life‐history variation as either adaptive or phylogenetically conserved (Losos, ). Nevertheless, phylogeny and current ecology do not represent mutually exclusive hypotheses, but provide complementary perspectives from which life‐history variation can be observed (Bellini et al ., ; Gotelli & Pyron, ).…”

“…but provide complementary perspectives from which life-history variation can be observed (Bellini et al, 2017;Gotelli & Pyron, 1991). Winemiller and Rose (1992) proposed a model that recognised three endpoint strategies: (a) opportunistic (short generation time, high reproductive effort, small body size, low batch fecundity and low investment per offspring); (b) periodic (long generation time, moderate reproductive effort, large body size, high batch fecundity and low investment per offspring); and (c) equilibrium (moderate to long generation time, low reproductive effort, variable body size, low batch fecundity and high investment per offspring).…”

Reproductive biology of Philodryas patagoniensis (Snakes: Dipsadidae) in south Brazil: Female reproductive cycle

“…In general, females' cycle tends to be less variable than males, and the vitellogenesis, ovulation, and oviposition are the most important events used to classify the reproductive cycle (Aldridge, Goldberg, Wisniewski, Bufalino, & Dillman, 2009). Furthermore, these events may drastically diverge depending on evolutionary history, temperature, photoperiod, duration of reproductive season, food availability, body condition and quality of fat reserves (Bellini, Arzamendia, & Giraudo, 2016;Naulleau & Bonnet, 1996). Summarizing the plasticity in life-history traits is influenced by environmental factors as well as by genetic characteristics (Seigel & Ford, 2001).…”