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ECOLOGICAL OPPORTUNITY AND THE RATE OF MORPHOLOGICAL EVOLUTION IN THE DIVERSIFICATION OF GREATER ANTILLEAN ANOLES
Author(s) -
Mahler D. Luke,
Revell Liam J.,
Glor Richard E.,
Losos Jonathan B.
Publication year - 2010
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.1558-5646.2010.01026.x
Subject(s) - adaptive radiation , biology , diversification (marketing strategy) , anolis , ecology , phenotypic plasticity , evolutionary biology , phylogenetic tree , lizard , biochemistry , marketing , gene , business
The pace of phenotypic diversification during adaptive radiation should decrease as ecological opportunity declines. We test this prediction using phylogenetic comparative analyses of a wide range of morphological traits in Greater Antillean Anolis lizards. We find that the rate of diversification along two important axes of Anolis radiation—body size and limb dimensions—decreased as opportunity declined, with opportunity quantified either as time elapsed in the radiation or as the diversity of competing anole lineages inferred to have been present on an island at different times in the past. Most previous studies of the ecological opportunity hypothesis have focused on the rate of species diversification; our results provide a complementary perspective, indicating that the rate of phenotypic diversification declines with decreasing opportunity in an adaptive radiation.