Evolution along allometric lines of least resistance: Morphological differentiation in Pristurus geckos
Data files
Abstract
Species living in distinct habitats often experience unique ecological selective pressures, which can drive phenotypic divergence. However, how ecophenotypic patterns are affected by allometric trends and trait integration levels is less well understood. Here we evaluate the role of allometry in shaping body size and body form diversity in Pristurus geckos utilizing differing habitats. We found that patterns of allometry and integration in body form were distinct in species with different habitat preferences, with ground-dwelling Pristurus displaying the most divergent allometric trend and high levels of integration. There was also strong concordance between intraspecific allometry across individuals and evolutionary allometry among species, revealing that differences in body form among individuals were predictive of evolutionary changes across the phylogeny at macroevolutionary scales. This suggested that phenotypic evolution occurred along allometric lines of least resistance, with allometric trajectories imposing a strong influence on the magnitude and direction of size and shape changes across the phylogeny. When viewed in phylomorphospace, the largest rock-dwelling species were most similar to the smallest ground-dwelling species, and vice versa. Thus, in Pristurus, phenotypic evolution along the differing habitat-based allometric trajectories resulted in similar body forms at differing body sizes in distinct ecological habitats.
README: Morphological data
README
In this folder, you can find the code, the morphological dataset, and the phylogenetic data necessary for the analyses described in the 'software' folder.
These are the linear measurements in millimeters (mm) of Pristurus specimens (morpho_pristurus.csv) and the average for each species (morpho_sp_final.csv).
The linear measurements are as follows:
- SVL: Snout-Vent Length (Body size) (mm).
- TrL: Trunk Length (mm).
- HL: Head Length (mm).
- HW: Head Width (mm).
- HH: Head Height (mm).
- Lhu: Length of the humerus (mm).
- Lun: Length of the ulna (mm).
- Lfe: Length of the femur (mm).
- Ltb: Length of the tibia (mm).
Phylogenetic data
Consensus tree in Nexus format (pristurus_tree_final.nex) and posterior phylogenetic trees in RDS format (posterior_pristurus_final.rds) of Pristurus, extracted from a published phylogeny of Afro-Arabian squamates (Tejero-Cicuéndez et al. 2022 Systematic Biology).