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Rates of morphological evolution in Captorhinidae: an adaptive radiation of Permian herbivores

The evolution of herbivory in early tetrapods was crucial in the establishment of terrestrial ecosystems, although it is so far unclear what effect this innovation had on the macro-evolutionary patterns observed within this clade. The clades that entered this under-filled region of ecospace might be...

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Autor principal: Brocklehurst, Neil
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: PeerJ Inc. 2017
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5392250/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/28417061
http://dx.doi.org/10.7717/peerj.3200
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author Brocklehurst, Neil
author_facet Brocklehurst, Neil
author_sort Brocklehurst, Neil
collection PubMed
description The evolution of herbivory in early tetrapods was crucial in the establishment of terrestrial ecosystems, although it is so far unclear what effect this innovation had on the macro-evolutionary patterns observed within this clade. The clades that entered this under-filled region of ecospace might be expected to have experienced an “adaptive radiation”: an increase in rates of morphological evolution and speciation driven by the evolution of a key innovation. However such inferences are often circumstantial, being based on the coincidence of a rate shift with the origin of an evolutionary novelty. The conclusion of an adaptive radiation may be made more robust by examining the pattern of the evolutionary shift; if the evolutionary innovation coincides not only with a shift in rates of morphological evolution, but specifically in the morphological characteristics relevant to the ecological shift of interest, then one may more plausibly infer a causal relationship between the two. Here I examine the impact of diet evolution on rates of morphological change in one of the earliest tetrapod clades to evolve high-fibre herbivory: Captorhinidae. Using a method of calculating heterogeneity in rates of discrete character change across a phylogeny, it is shown that a significant increase in rates of evolution coincides with the transition to herbivory in captorhinids. The herbivorous captorhinids also exhibit greater morphological disparity than their faunivorous relatives, indicating more rapid exploration of new regions of morphospace. As well as an increase in rates of evolution, there is a shift in the regions of the skeleton undergoing the most change; the character changes in the herbivorous lineages are concentrated in the mandible and dentition. The fact that the increase in rates of evolution coincides with increased change in characters relating to food acquisition provides stronger evidence for a causal relationship between the herbivorous diet and the radiation event.
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spelling pubmed-53922502017-04-17 Rates of morphological evolution in Captorhinidae: an adaptive radiation of Permian herbivores Brocklehurst, Neil PeerJ Evolutionary Studies The evolution of herbivory in early tetrapods was crucial in the establishment of terrestrial ecosystems, although it is so far unclear what effect this innovation had on the macro-evolutionary patterns observed within this clade. The clades that entered this under-filled region of ecospace might be expected to have experienced an “adaptive radiation”: an increase in rates of morphological evolution and speciation driven by the evolution of a key innovation. However such inferences are often circumstantial, being based on the coincidence of a rate shift with the origin of an evolutionary novelty. The conclusion of an adaptive radiation may be made more robust by examining the pattern of the evolutionary shift; if the evolutionary innovation coincides not only with a shift in rates of morphological evolution, but specifically in the morphological characteristics relevant to the ecological shift of interest, then one may more plausibly infer a causal relationship between the two. Here I examine the impact of diet evolution on rates of morphological change in one of the earliest tetrapod clades to evolve high-fibre herbivory: Captorhinidae. Using a method of calculating heterogeneity in rates of discrete character change across a phylogeny, it is shown that a significant increase in rates of evolution coincides with the transition to herbivory in captorhinids. The herbivorous captorhinids also exhibit greater morphological disparity than their faunivorous relatives, indicating more rapid exploration of new regions of morphospace. As well as an increase in rates of evolution, there is a shift in the regions of the skeleton undergoing the most change; the character changes in the herbivorous lineages are concentrated in the mandible and dentition. The fact that the increase in rates of evolution coincides with increased change in characters relating to food acquisition provides stronger evidence for a causal relationship between the herbivorous diet and the radiation event. PeerJ Inc. 2017-04-13 /pmc/articles/PMC5392250/ /pubmed/28417061 http://dx.doi.org/10.7717/peerj.3200 Text en ©2017 Brocklehurst http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) , which permits unrestricted use, distribution, reproduction and adaptation in any medium and for any purpose provided that it is properly attributed. For attribution, the original author(s), title, publication source (PeerJ) and either DOI or URL of the article must be cited.
spellingShingle Evolutionary Studies
Brocklehurst, Neil
Rates of morphological evolution in Captorhinidae: an adaptive radiation of Permian herbivores
title Rates of morphological evolution in Captorhinidae: an adaptive radiation of Permian herbivores
title_full Rates of morphological evolution in Captorhinidae: an adaptive radiation of Permian herbivores
title_fullStr Rates of morphological evolution in Captorhinidae: an adaptive radiation of Permian herbivores
title_full_unstemmed Rates of morphological evolution in Captorhinidae: an adaptive radiation of Permian herbivores
title_short Rates of morphological evolution in Captorhinidae: an adaptive radiation of Permian herbivores
title_sort rates of morphological evolution in captorhinidae: an adaptive radiation of permian herbivores
topic Evolutionary Studies
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5392250/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/28417061
http://dx.doi.org/10.7717/peerj.3200
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