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Testing the adaptive radiation hypothesis for the lemurs of Madagascar
Lemurs, the diverse, endemic primates of Madagascar, are thought to represent a classic example of adaptive radiation. Based on the most complete phylogeny of living and extinct lemurs yet assembled, I tested predictions of adaptive radiation theory by estimating rates of speciation, extinction and...
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Formato: | Online Artículo Texto |
Lenguaje: | English |
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The Royal Society Publishing
2017
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Acceso en línea: | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5319363/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/28280597 http://dx.doi.org/10.1098/rsos.161014 |
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author | Herrera, James P. |
author_facet | Herrera, James P. |
author_sort | Herrera, James P. |
collection | PubMed |
description | Lemurs, the diverse, endemic primates of Madagascar, are thought to represent a classic example of adaptive radiation. Based on the most complete phylogeny of living and extinct lemurs yet assembled, I tested predictions of adaptive radiation theory by estimating rates of speciation, extinction and adaptive phenotypic evolution. As predicted, lemur speciation rate exceeded that of their sister clade by nearly twofold, indicating the diversification dynamics of lemurs and mainland relatives may have been decoupled. Lemur diversification rates did not decline over time, however, as predicted by adaptive radiation theory. Optimal body masses diverged among dietary and activity pattern niches as lineages diversified into unique multidimensional ecospace. Based on these results, lemurs only partially fulfil the predictions of adaptive radiation theory, with phenotypic evolution corresponding to an ‘early burst’ of adaptive differentiation. The results must be interpreted with caution, however, because over the long evolutionary history of lemurs (approx. 50 million years), the ‘early burst’ signal of adaptive radiation may have been eroded by extinction. |
format | Online Article Text |
id | pubmed-5319363 |
institution | National Center for Biotechnology Information |
language | English |
publishDate | 2017 |
publisher | The Royal Society Publishing |
record_format | MEDLINE/PubMed |
spelling | pubmed-53193632017-03-09 Testing the adaptive radiation hypothesis for the lemurs of Madagascar Herrera, James P. R Soc Open Sci Biology (Whole Organism) Lemurs, the diverse, endemic primates of Madagascar, are thought to represent a classic example of adaptive radiation. Based on the most complete phylogeny of living and extinct lemurs yet assembled, I tested predictions of adaptive radiation theory by estimating rates of speciation, extinction and adaptive phenotypic evolution. As predicted, lemur speciation rate exceeded that of their sister clade by nearly twofold, indicating the diversification dynamics of lemurs and mainland relatives may have been decoupled. Lemur diversification rates did not decline over time, however, as predicted by adaptive radiation theory. Optimal body masses diverged among dietary and activity pattern niches as lineages diversified into unique multidimensional ecospace. Based on these results, lemurs only partially fulfil the predictions of adaptive radiation theory, with phenotypic evolution corresponding to an ‘early burst’ of adaptive differentiation. The results must be interpreted with caution, however, because over the long evolutionary history of lemurs (approx. 50 million years), the ‘early burst’ signal of adaptive radiation may have been eroded by extinction. The Royal Society Publishing 2017-01-18 /pmc/articles/PMC5319363/ /pubmed/28280597 http://dx.doi.org/10.1098/rsos.161014 Text en © 2017 The Authors. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ Published by the Royal Society under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/, which permits unrestricted use, provided the original author and source are credited. |
spellingShingle | Biology (Whole Organism) Herrera, James P. Testing the adaptive radiation hypothesis for the lemurs of Madagascar |
title | Testing the adaptive radiation hypothesis for the lemurs of Madagascar |
title_full | Testing the adaptive radiation hypothesis for the lemurs of Madagascar |
title_fullStr | Testing the adaptive radiation hypothesis for the lemurs of Madagascar |
title_full_unstemmed | Testing the adaptive radiation hypothesis for the lemurs of Madagascar |
title_short | Testing the adaptive radiation hypothesis for the lemurs of Madagascar |
title_sort | testing the adaptive radiation hypothesis for the lemurs of madagascar |
topic | Biology (Whole Organism) |
url | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5319363/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/28280597 http://dx.doi.org/10.1098/rsos.161014 |
work_keys_str_mv | AT herrerajamesp testingtheadaptiveradiationhypothesisforthelemursofmadagascar |