Ecological Filtering and Exaptation in the Evolution of Marine Snakes

Gearty, William; Carrillo, Elsie; Payne, Jonathan L.

doi:10.1086/716015

Cited by 9 publications

(3 citation statements)

References 73 publications

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“…The integration of traits to explain why some clades undergo major habitat transitions and some do not ( 58 ) could potentially reveal mechanisms for species-richness patterns. Since teleosts originated in the shallow realm, shallow-to-deep colonization is a necessary precursor for deep-sea richness to ever exceed shallow richness.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Alternating regimes of shallow and deep-sea diversification explain a species-richness paradox in marine fishes

Miller

Martinez

Friedman

et al. 2022

Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A.

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The deep sea contains a surprising diversity of life, including iconic fish groups such as anglerfishes and lanternfishes. Still, >65% of marine teleost fish species are restricted to the photic zone <200 m, which comprises less than 10% of the ocean’s total volume. From a macroevolutionary perspective, this paradox may be explained by three hypotheses: 1) shallow water lineages have had more time to diversify than deep-sea lineages, 2) shallow water lineages have faster rates of speciation than deep-sea lineages, or 3) shallow-to-deep sea transition rates limit deep-sea richness. Here we use phylogenetic comparative methods to test among these three non-mutually exclusive hypotheses. While we found support for all hypotheses, the disparity in species richness is better described as the uneven outcome of alternating phases that favored shallow or deep diversification over the past 200 million y. Shallow marine teleosts became incredibly diverse 100 million y ago during a period of warm temperatures and high sea level, suggesting the importance of reefs and epicontinental settings. Conversely, deep-sea colonization and speciation was favored during brief episodes when cooling temperatures increased the efficiency of the ocean’s carbon pump. Finally, time-variable ecological filters limited shallow-to-deep colonization for much of teleost history, which helped maintain higher shallow richness. A pelagic lifestyle and large jaws were associated with early deep-sea colonists, while a demersal lifestyle and a tapered body plan were typical of later colonists. Therefore, we also suggest that some hallmark characteristics of deep-sea fishes evolved prior to colonizing the deep sea.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Alternating regimes of shallow and deep-sea diversification explain a species-richness paradox in marine fishes

Miller

Martinez

Friedman

et al. 2022

Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A.

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“…Yet, the full spectrum of freshwater or semi-aquatic lineages is often not included on secondary aquatic transitions (e.g. [ 1 , 2 , 11 , 12 , 30 ]; but see [ 31 , 32 ]) making it difficult to assess the generality of patterns associated with aquatic adaptation in mammalian and in tetrapod evolution.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Dollo meets Bergmann: morphological evolution in secondary aquatic mammals

2023

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Secondary transitions to aquatic environments are common among vertebrates, and aquatic lineages display several adaptations to this realm, some of which might make these transitions irreversible. At the same time, discussions about secondary transitions often focus only on the marine realm, comparing fully terrestrial with fully aquatic species. This, however, captures only a fraction of land-to-water transitions, and freshwater and semi-aquatic groups are often neglected in macroevolutionary studies. Here, we use phylogenetic comparative methods to unravel the evolution of different levels of aquatic adaptations across all extant mammals, testing if aquatic adaptations are irreversible and if they are related to relative body mass changes. We found irreversible adaptations consistent with Dollo's Law in lineages that rely strongly on aquatic environments, while weaker adaptations in semi-aquatic lineages, which still allow efficient terrestrial movement, are reversible. In lineages transitioning to aquatic realms, including semi-aquatic ones, we found a consistent trend towards an increased relative body mass and a significant association with a more carnivorous diet. We interpret these patterns as the result of thermoregulation constraints associated with the high thermal conductivity of water leading to body mass increase consistently with Bergmann's rule and to a prevalence of more nutritious diets.

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“…This debate expanded the field of application of environmental filtering concept (e.g. Gearty et al 2021), boosting research in novel approaches capable of disentangling these ecological processes (e.g. Germain et al 2018).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

How landscape and biotic interactions shape a Mediterranean reptile community

Romano¹,

Rosa

Salvidio

et al. 2022

Landsc Ecol

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Context Disentangling the effect of environment and biological interaction on community composition with observational data, within the environmental filtering framework, is challenging because the two processes produce non independent results. Objectives Adopting community N-mixture models with symmetric interactions, we aimed at estimating differential effects of landscape structure and biotic interactions on the local abundance of a Mediterranean reptile community including four lizards (Lacerta bilineata; Podarcis siculus; P. muralis; Chalcides chalcides) and two snakes (Hierophis viridiflavus; Natrix Helvetica). Methods We sampled reptiles for three consecutive years (2019–2021; 4 surveys/year) on 52 linear transects on a Mediterranean coastal landscape. We analyzed count data by means of a multi-species N-mixture model with symmetric interactions. Interactions within pair of species were estimated from the residual correlation of their realized abundances, after accounting for four landscape features: landscape heterogeneity calculated from land cover data, edge density of woody vegetation patches, tree cover density, net primary productivity. Results Most species displayed very low detection probability (p ~ 0.10). All species responded with different intensity and sensitivity to landscape predictors. Two biological interactions resulted significant: L. bilineata and P. siculus showed a positive interaction, while P. muralis and C. chalcides displayed a negative interaction. Conclusions Using community N-mixture models we demonstrated that, also with observational data obtained from a realized community, partitioning the filtering process of the landscape from the one of biotic interactions is possible.

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Ecological Filtering and Exaptation in the Evolution of Marine Snakes

Cited by 9 publications

References 73 publications

Alternating regimes of shallow and deep-sea diversification explain a species-richness paradox in marine fishes

Alternating regimes of shallow and deep-sea diversification explain a species-richness paradox in marine fishes

Dollo meets Bergmann: morphological evolution in secondary aquatic mammals

How landscape and biotic interactions shape a Mediterranean reptile community

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