Chewing on the trees: Constraints and adaptation in the evolution of the primate mandible

Meloro, Carlo; Cáceres, Nilton C.; Carotenuto, Francesco; Sponchiado, Jonas; Melo, Geruza Leal; Passaro, Federico; Raia, Pasquale

doi:10.1111/evo.12694

Cited by 44 publications

(45 citation statements)

References 61 publications

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“…) than for other mammal groups, as South American bats (Monteiro and Nogueira ) and monkeys (Meloro et al. ), which both seem to have a strong selective component to their morphologies. The vast geographical expanse of the South American continent and the habitat diversity and fragmentation generated by Andean uplift provided the opportunity for allopatric speciation in sigmodontines without competitive elimination, resulting in a high within‐clade morphological disparity despite an early burst of species diversification.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 95%

The ecology of a continental evolutionary radiation: Is the radiation of sigmodontine rodents adaptive?

et al. 2017

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Evolutionary radiations on continents are less well-understood and appreciated than those occurring on islands. The extent of ecological influence on species divergence can be evaluated to determine whether a radiation was ultimately the outcome of divergent natural selection or else arose mainly by nonecological divergence. Here, we used phylogenetic comparative methods to test distinct hypotheses corresponding to adaptive and nonadaptive evolutionary scenarios for the morphological evolution of sigmodontine rodents. Results showed that ecological variables (diet and life-mode) explain little of the shape and size variation of sigmodontine skulls and mandibles. A Brownian model with varying rates for insectivory versus all other diets was the most likely evolutionary model. The insectivorous sigmodontines have a faster rate of morphological evolution than mice feeding on other diets, possibly due to stronger selection for features that aid insectivory. We also demonstrate that rapid early-lineage diversification is not accompanied by high morphological divergence among subclades, contrasting with island results. The geographic size of continents permits spatial segregation to a greater extent than on islands, allowing for allopatric distributions and escape from interspecific competition. We suggest that continental radiations of rodents are likely to produce a pattern of high species diversification coupled with a low degree of phenotypic specialization.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 95%

The ecology of a continental evolutionary radiation: Is the radiation of sigmodontine rodents adaptive?

et al. 2017

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“…Humeral morphology discriminates individuals from different habitat categories well in Old World monkeys (Elton, ), and is functionally informative in other groups such as the felids (Meloro et al. ). This good discrimination is especially interesting considering that primates groom, forage and mechanically prepare food manually, so their forelimbs are regularly used for purposes other than locomotion.…”

Section: Skeletal ‘Generality’ and Implications For Ecomorphic Analysismentioning

confidence: 99%

Exploring morphological generality in the Old World monkey postcranium using an ecomorphological framework

et al. 2016

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Nearly all primates are ecologically dependent on trees, but they are nonetheless found in an enormous range of habitats, from highly xeric environments to dense rainforest. Most primates have a relatively ‘generalised’ skeleton, enabling locomotor flexibility and facilitating other crucial functions, such as manual foraging and grooming. This paper explores the associations between habitat, locomotion and morphology in the forelimbs of cercopithecids (Old World monkeys), contextualising their skeletal ecomorphological patterns with those of other mammals, and complementing functional morphological analyses with phylogenetic comparative techniques. The ecomorphological signals present in the generalised primate postcranium, and how an ancestral arboreal ‘bauplan’ might be modified to incorporate terrestriality or exploit distinct arboreal substrates, are investigated. Analysis of ecomorphological variation in guenons indicates that terrestrial Chlorocebus species retain core elements of a general guenon form, with modifications for terrestriality that vary by species. Adaptation to different modes of arboreality has also occurred in Cercopithecus. The considerable morphological similarity in the guenons sampled emphasises the importance of generality in the primate postcranium – much forelimb variation appears to have emerged stochastically, with a smaller number of traits having a strong functional signal. Analysis of a broader sample of cercopithecids and comparison with felids, suids and bovids indicates that although the cercopithecid humerus has functional morphological signals that enable specimens to be assigned with a reasonable degree of certainty to habitat groups, there is considerable overlap in the specimens assigned to each habitat group. This probably reflects ecological dependence on trees, even in predominantly terrestrial species, as well as the multiple functions of the forelimb and, in some cases, wide geographic distributions that promote intraspecific variation. The use of phylogenetic correction reduced the discriminatory power of the models, indicating that, like allometry, phylogeny contains important ecomorphological information, and should not necessarily be factored out of analyses.

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“…; Meloro et al. ); but, to our knowledge, it has been never used before to analyze multivariate semiquantitative data of flower scents. In this work, we use these methods, together with some more common univariate and multivariate phylogenetic techniques, to assess to what extent flower scent composition is conserved along the phylogeny of the tribe Sileneae (Caryophyllaceae).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Comparative analyses of flower scent inSileneaereveal a contrasting phylogenetic signal between night and day emissions

Prieto‐Benítez

Millanes

Dötterl

et al. 2016

Ecology and Evolution

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Flower scents are complex blends of volatile compounds often shaped by selection pressures exerted by mutualistic and antagonistic interaction partners, but also by phylogenetic constraints. So far, little is known about the relative effect of selection and phylogenetic signal on scent patterns, and no study to date analyzed the phylogenetic signal in multivariate semiquantitative scent patterns. We analyzed the phylogenetic signal in qualitative and semi-quantitative patterns of flower scents in 47 Sileneae (Caryophyllaceae) species using phylogenetic principal component analysis (pPCA) and several indices of univariate and multivariate phylogenetic signal. As previous results showed that Sileneae species are visited by diurnal and nocturnal pollinators and flower scents also vary along the day, we compared the phylogenetic signal between night and day. Multivariate pPCA analyses identified compounds that correlate with the phylogeny at both night and day; however, multivariate Bloomberg 0 s K detected phylogenetic signal in the dataset of night scents, but not of day scents. In multivariate qualitative datasets, phylogenetic signal was neither found for day nor for night scents. In univariate analyses, phylogenetic signal was detected for some compounds both for day and night scents. Overall, we found that the phylogenetic signal is stronger in night compared to day scents, which might be owed to the different guilds of pollinators at day and night. At day, the phylogenetic resemblance of Sileneae scents might be masked by or disappear due to divergent selective pressures exerted by a diverse guild of pollinators on the different species. In contrast, we hypothesize that the nocturnal moth pollinators exert similar selective pressures; thus, the phylogenetic similarity of scent profiles might be conserved. Future studies of scent phylogenetic signal must consider not only the usage of qualitative measures but also semiquantitative analyses.

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Chewing on the trees: Constraints and adaptation in the evolution of the primate mandible

Cited by 44 publications

References 61 publications

The ecology of a continental evolutionary radiation: Is the radiation of sigmodontine rodents adaptive?

The ecology of a continental evolutionary radiation: Is the radiation of sigmodontine rodents adaptive?

Exploring morphological generality in the Old World monkey postcranium using an ecomorphological framework

Comparative analyses of flower scent inSileneaereveal a contrasting phylogenetic signal between night and day emissions

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