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Snakes possess a derived anatomy, characterized by limb reduction and reorganization of the skull and internal organs. To understand the origin of snakes from an ontogenetic point of view, we conducted comprehensive investigations on the timing of skeletal elements, based on published and new data, and reconstructed the evolution of the ossification sequence among squamates. We included for the first...
Explaining the evolution and maintenance of polyandry remains a key challenge in evolutionary ecology. One appealing explanation is the sexually selected sperm (SSS) hypothesis, which proposes that polyandry evolves due to indirect selection stemming from positive genetic covariance with male fertilization efficiency, and hence with a male's success in postcopulatory competition for paternity. However,...
Life is full of risk. To deal with this uncertainty, many organisms have evolved bet‐hedging strategies that spread risk through phenotypic diversification. These rates of diversification can vary by orders of magnitude in different species. Here we examine how key characteristics of risk and organismal ecology affect the fitness consequences of variation in diversification rate. We find that rapid...
Rapid morphological changes in response to fluctuating natural environments are a common phenomenon in species that undergo adaptive radiation. The dramatic ecological changes in Lake Victoria provide a unique opportunity to study environmental effects on cichlid morphology. This study shows how four haplochromine cichlids adapted their premaxilla to a changed diet over the past 30 years. Directly...
Reproductive isolation due to pollinator behavior is considered a key mode of speciation in flowering plants. Although floral scent is thought to mediate pollinator behavior, little is known about its effects on pollinator attraction and floral visitation in the wild. We used field experiments with wild hawkmoths and laboratory experiments with naïve hawkmoths to investigate attraction to and probing...
For traits showing correlated evolution, one trait may evolve more slowly than the other, producing evolutionary lag. The species‐pairs evolutionary lag test (SPELT) uses an independent contrasts based approach to detect evolutionary lag on a phylogeny. We investigated the statistical performance of SPELT in relation to degree of lag, sample size (species pairs), and strength of association between...
Life‐history theory predicts that traits for survival and reproduction cannot be simultaneously maximized in evolving populations. For this reason, in obligate parasites such as infectious viruses, selection for improved between‐host survival during transmission may lead to evolution of decreased within‐host reproduction. We tested this idea using experimental evolution of RNA virus populations, passaged...
This article investigates the possible existence of mechanisms counterbalancing the negative pleiotropic effects on development and reproduction that are conferred by alleles responsible for herbicide resistance in the weed Alopecurus myosuroides. We considered three herbicide‐resistant, mutant acetyl‐coenzyme A carboxylase (ACCase) alleles, Leu1781, Asn2041, and Gly2078, found in eight resistant...
Understanding the processes that generate novel adaptive phenotypes is central to evolutionary biology. We used comparative analyses to reveal the history of tetrodotoxin (TTX) resistance in TTX‐bearing salamanders. Resistance to TTX is a critical component of the ability to use TTX defensively but the origin of the TTX‐bearing phenotype is unclear. Skeletal muscle of TTX‐bearing salamanders (modern...
Sensory drive theory contends that signaling systems should evolve to optimize transmission between senders and intended receivers, while minimizing visibility to eavesdroppers where possible. In visual communication systems, the high directionality afforded by iridescent coloration presents underappreciated avenues for mediating this trade‐off. This hypothesis predicts functional links between signal...
Local adaptation occurs when different environments are dominated by different specialist genotypes, each of which is relatively fit in its local conditions and relatively unfit under other conditions. Analogously, ecological species sorting occurs when different environments are dominated by different competing species, each of which is relatively fit in its local conditions. The simplest theory...
The mechanisms that make that the costs of producing high‐quality signals are unaffordable to low‐quality signalers are a current issue in animal communication. The size of the melanin‐based bib of male house sparrows Passer domesticus honestly signals quality. We induced the development of new bibs while treating males with buthionine‐sulfoximine (BSO), a substance that depletes the levels of the...
An understanding of the distribution of natural patterns of genetic variation is relevant to such fundamental biological fields as evolution and development. One recent approach to understanding such patterns has been to focus on the constraints that may arise as a function of the network or pathway context in which genes are embedded. Despite theoretical expectations of higher evolutionary constraint...
Peat mosses (Sphagnum) are ecosystem engineers—species in boreal peatlands simultaneously create and inhabit narrow habitat preferences along two microhabitat gradients: an ionic gradient and a hydrological hummock–hollow gradient. In this article, we demonstrate the connections between microhabitat preference and phylogeny in Sphagnum. Using a dataset of 39 species of Sphagnum, with an 18‐locus DNA...
Multiple mating by females is difficult to explain in primarily socially monogamous taxa such as birds because mating outside the pair bond often provides no obvious benefit to females. Although indirect selection is often invoked to explain the evolution of polyandry, current evidence suggests that selection on indirect benefits of mating is weak. Here, I consider a direct benefit of remating in...
Organisms generally have many defenses against predation, yet may lack effective defenses if from populations without predators. Evolutionary theory predicts that “costly” antipredator behaviors will be selected against when predation risk diminishes. We examined antipredator behaviors in Aegean wall lizards, Podarcis erhardii, across an archipelago of land‐bridge islands that vary in predator diversity...
Particularly intriguing examples of adaptive radiation are those in which lineages show parallel or convergent evolution, suggesting utilization of similar genetic or developmental pathways. The current study focuses on an adaptive radiation of Hawaiian “spiny‐leg” spiders in which diversification is associated with repeated convergent evolution leading to similar sets of ecomorphs on each island...
One of the most striking biodiversity patterns is the uneven distribution of marine species richness, with species diversity in the Indo‐Australian Archipelago (IAA) exceeding all other areas. However, the IAA formed fairly recently, and marine biodiversity hotspots have shifted across nearly half the globe since the Paleogene. Understanding how lineages have responded to shifting biodiversity hotspots...
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