When a general morphology allows many habitat uses

M.J. TULLI; FB CRUZ; KOHLSDORF, T.; ABDALA, V

Integrative Zoology

Wiley

Año: 2016 p. 483 - 499

The morphological basis for functional morphology has been revitalized and more detailed data are being incorporated for a better understanding of the actual features involved in locomotion. Here we focus on two lizard families, Tropiduridae and Liolaemidae,and use information of muscle-tendinous and external morphology traits of hind legs. We investigate if phenotypic variation was produced by stabilizing selection; and whether species showing specialization in their habitat use will also exhibit special morphological features related to it. As a result, we identified that evolution of hind limb traits is mainly explained by the Ornstein-Uhlenbeck model, suggesting stabilizing selection. Liolaemids and tropidurids show clear ecomorphological trends in the variables considered, with sand lizards presenting the most specialized morphological traits. Some ecomorphological trends differ between the two lineages, and traits of internal morphology tend to be more flexible than those of external morphology, restricting the ability to identify ecomorphs shared between these two lineages. Conservative traits of external morphology likely explain such restriction, as ecomorphs have been historically defined in other lizard clades based on characters of external morphology.