Environmental correlates of phenotypic evolution in ecologically diverse Liolaemus lizards

EDWARDS, D.L.; AVILA, L.J.; MARTINEZ, L.E.; SITES JR., J.W.; MORANDO, M.

Ecology and Evolution

Wiley

Año: 2022 p. 1 - 16

Evolutionary correlations between phenotypic and environmental traits characterizeadaptive radiations. However, the lizard genus Liolaemus, one of the most ecologicallydiverse terrestrial vertebrate radiations on earth, has so far shown limited or mixedevidence of adaptive diversification in phenotype. Restricted use of comprehensiveenvironmental data, incomplete taxonomic representation and not considering phylogenetic uncertainty may have led to contradictory evidence. We compiled a 26-taxondataset for the Liolaemus gracilis species group, representing much of the ecologicaldiversity represented within Liolaemus and used environmental data to characterizehow environments occupied by species´ relate to phenotypic evolution. Our analyses,explicitly accounting for phylogenetic uncertainty, suggest diversification in phenotypic traits toward the present, with body shape evolution rapidly evolving in thisgroup. Body shape evolution correlates with the occupation of different structuralhabitats indicated by vegetation axes suggesting species have adapted for maximallocomotory performance in these habitats. Our results also imply that the effectsof phylogenetic uncertainty and model misspecification may be more extensive onunivariate, relative to multivariate analyses of evolutionary correlations, which is animportant consideration in analyzing data from rapidly radiating adaptive radiations.