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Palatal morphology predicts the paleobiology of early salamanders

Ecological preferences and life history strategies have enormous impacts on the evolution and phenotypic diversity of salamanders, but the yet established reliable ecological indicators from bony skeletons hinder investigations into the paleobiology of early salamanders. Here, we statistically demon...

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Autores principales: Jia, Jia, Li, Guangzhao, Gao, Ke-Qin
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: eLife Sciences Publications, Ltd 2022
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9170251/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/35575462
http://dx.doi.org/10.7554/eLife.76864
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author Jia, Jia
Li, Guangzhao
Gao, Ke-Qin
author_facet Jia, Jia
Li, Guangzhao
Gao, Ke-Qin
author_sort Jia, Jia
collection PubMed
description Ecological preferences and life history strategies have enormous impacts on the evolution and phenotypic diversity of salamanders, but the yet established reliable ecological indicators from bony skeletons hinder investigations into the paleobiology of early salamanders. Here, we statistically demonstrate by using time-calibrated cladograms and geometric morphometric analysis on 71 specimens in 36 species, that both the shape of the palate and many non-shape covariates particularly associated with vomerine teeth are ecologically informative in early stem- and basal crown-group salamanders. Disparity patterns within the morphospace of the palate in ecological preferences, life history strategies, and taxonomic affiliations were analyzed in detail, and evolutionary rates and ancestral states of the palate were reconstructed. Our results show that the palate is heavily impacted by convergence constrained by feeding mechanisms and also exhibits clear stepwise evolutionary patterns with alternative phenotypic configurations to cope with similar functional demand. Salamanders are diversified ecologically before the Middle Jurassic and achieved all their present ecological preferences in the Early Cretaceous. Our results reveal that the last common ancestor of all salamanders share with other modern amphibians a unified biphasic ecological preference, and metamorphosis is significant in the expansion of ecomorphospace of the palate in early salamanders.
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spelling pubmed-91702512022-06-07 Palatal morphology predicts the paleobiology of early salamanders Jia, Jia Li, Guangzhao Gao, Ke-Qin eLife Evolutionary Biology Ecological preferences and life history strategies have enormous impacts on the evolution and phenotypic diversity of salamanders, but the yet established reliable ecological indicators from bony skeletons hinder investigations into the paleobiology of early salamanders. Here, we statistically demonstrate by using time-calibrated cladograms and geometric morphometric analysis on 71 specimens in 36 species, that both the shape of the palate and many non-shape covariates particularly associated with vomerine teeth are ecologically informative in early stem- and basal crown-group salamanders. Disparity patterns within the morphospace of the palate in ecological preferences, life history strategies, and taxonomic affiliations were analyzed in detail, and evolutionary rates and ancestral states of the palate were reconstructed. Our results show that the palate is heavily impacted by convergence constrained by feeding mechanisms and also exhibits clear stepwise evolutionary patterns with alternative phenotypic configurations to cope with similar functional demand. Salamanders are diversified ecologically before the Middle Jurassic and achieved all their present ecological preferences in the Early Cretaceous. Our results reveal that the last common ancestor of all salamanders share with other modern amphibians a unified biphasic ecological preference, and metamorphosis is significant in the expansion of ecomorphospace of the palate in early salamanders. eLife Sciences Publications, Ltd 2022-05-16 /pmc/articles/PMC9170251/ /pubmed/35575462 http://dx.doi.org/10.7554/eLife.76864 Text en © 2022, Jia et al https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) , which permits unrestricted use and redistribution provided that the original author and source are credited.
spellingShingle Evolutionary Biology
Jia, Jia
Li, Guangzhao
Gao, Ke-Qin
Palatal morphology predicts the paleobiology of early salamanders
title Palatal morphology predicts the paleobiology of early salamanders
title_full Palatal morphology predicts the paleobiology of early salamanders
title_fullStr Palatal morphology predicts the paleobiology of early salamanders
title_full_unstemmed Palatal morphology predicts the paleobiology of early salamanders
title_short Palatal morphology predicts the paleobiology of early salamanders
title_sort palatal morphology predicts the paleobiology of early salamanders
topic Evolutionary Biology
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9170251/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/35575462
http://dx.doi.org/10.7554/eLife.76864
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