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Publication Details
AFRICAN RESEARCH NEXUS
SHINING A SPOTLIGHT ON AFRICAN RESEARCH
Early bursts of body size and shape evolution are rare in comparative data
Evolution, Volume 64, No. 8, Year 2010
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Description
George Gaylord Simpson famously postulated that much of life's diversity originated as adaptive radiations-more or less simultaneous divergences of numerous lines from a single ancestral adaptive type. However, identifying adaptive radiations has proven difficult due to a lack of broad-scale comparative datasets. Here, we use phylogenetic comparative data on body size and shape in a diversity of animal clades to test a key model of adaptive radiation, in which initially rapid morphological evolution is followed by relative stasis. We compared the fit of this model to both single selective peak and random walk models. We found little support for the early-burst model of adaptive radiation, whereas both other models, particularly that of selective peaks, were commonly supported. In addition, we found that the net rate of morphological evolution varied inversely with clade age. The youngest clades appear to evolve most rapidly because long-term change typically does not attain the amount of divergence predicted from rates measured over short time scales. Across our entire analysis, the dominant pattern was one of constraints shaping evolution continually through time rather than rapid evolution followed by stasis. We suggest that the classical model of adaptive radiation, where morphological evolution is initially rapid and slows through time, may be rare in comparative data. © 2010 The Author(s). Journal compilation © 2010 The Society for the Study of Evolution.
Authors & Co-Authors
Harmon, Luke J.
United States, Moscow
University of Idaho
Canada, Vancouver
The University of British Columbia
Losos, Jonathan B.
United States, Cambridge
Harvard University
Davies, T. Jonathan
United States, Santa Barbara
University of California, Santa Barbara
Gillespie, Rosemary G.
United States, Berkeley
University of California, Berkeley
Gittleman, John L.
United States, Athens
University of Georgia
McPeek, Mark A.
United States, Hanover
Dartmouth College
Near, Thomas J.
United States, New Haven
Yale University
Purvis, Andy
United Kingdom, London
Imperial College London
Ricklefs, Robert Eric
United States, St. Louis
University of Missouri-st. Louis
Seehausen, Ole
Switzerland, Bern
University of Bern
Switzerland, Dubendorf
Eawag - Swiss Federal Institute of Aquatic Science and Technology
Sidlauskas, Brian L.
United States, Durham
National Evolutionary Synthesis Center
United States, Corvallis
Oregon State University
Torres-Carvajal, Omar
Ecuador, Quito
Pontificia Universidad Católica Del Ecuador
Mooers, Arne Ï¿½
Canada, Burnaby
Simon Fraser University
Statistics
Citations: 609
Authors: 13
Affiliations: 19
Identifiers
Doi:
10.1111/j.1558-5646.2010.01025.x
ISSN:
15585646
Research Areas
Cancer