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EVOLUTION OF ADULT MORPHOLOGY AND LIFE‐HISTORY CHARACTERS IN CAVERNICOLOUS PTOMAPHAGUS BEETLES
Author(s) -
Peck Stewart B.
Publication year - 1986
Publication title -
evolution
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.84
H-Index - 199
eISSN - 1558-5646
pISSN - 0014-3820
DOI - 10.1111/j.1558-5646.1986.tb00569.x
Subject(s) - biology , cave , adaptation (eye) , larva , morphology (biology) , zoology , life history , life history theory , longevity , ecology , evolutionary biology , genetics , neuroscience
Morphological and life‐history characters were determined for a series of six increasingly cavernicolous species of eastern United States Ptomaphagus beetles. Contrary to expectations, dimensions of only some adult structural characters uniformly covary as an overall measure of evolutionary adaptation for cave life. Adult reproductive characters that show adaptation for cave life are loss of reproductive seasonality and production of fewer and larger eggs. Significant change in pre‐imaginal life‐cycle stages was not found. This is in contrast to cavernicolous bathysciine beetles of Europe which show remarkable adaptive trends in pre‐imaginal stages, but larval adaptations are not strongly coevolved with adult cave‐adaptive characters. This suggests that evolution of cave adaptation in adult endopterygote insects occurs before and independently from that in larvae.