Species Interactions Mediate Phylogenetic Community Structure in a Hyperdiverse Lizard Assemblage from Arid Australia

Abstract

Evolutionary history can exert a profound influence on ecological communities, but few generalities have emerged concerning the relationships among phylogeny, community membership, and niche evolution. We compared phylogenetic community structure and niche evolution in three lizard clades (Ctenotus skinks, agamids, and diplodactyline geckos) from arid Australia. We surveyed lizard communities at 32 sites in the northwestern Great Victoria Desert and generated complete species-level molecular phylogenies for regional representatives of the three clades. We document a striking pattern of phylogenetic evenness within local communities for all groups: pairwise correlations in species abundance across sites are negatively related to phylogenetic similarity. By modeling site suitability on the basis of species' habitat preferences, we demonstrate that phylogenetic evenness generally persists even after controlling for habitat filtering among species. This phylogenetic evenness is coupled with evolutionary lability of habitat-associated traits, to the extent that closely related species are more divergent in habitat use than distantly related species. In contrast, lizard diets are phylogenetically conserved, and pairwise dietary overlap between species is negatively related to phylogenetic distance in two of the three clades. Our results suggest that contemporary and historical species interactions have led to similar patterns of community structure across multiple clades in one of the world's most diverse lizard communities.

Phylogeny as a Proxy for Ecology in Seagrass Amphipods: Which Traits Are Most Conserved?

“…Traits determining the β-niche (e.g., environmental tolerances, macro-habitat requirements) often show different evolutionary patterns than those determining the α-niche (e.g., resource partitioning, micro-habitat use), because coexisting species must evolve similarities in the former and differences in the latter [11], [12], [14], [76], [77], [78]. In our study, however, we found that phylogenetic signal varies not only between the broad categories of β-niche and α-niche traits, but also within those categories.…”

Trade-off between camouflage and sexual dimorphism revealed by UV digital imaging: the case of Australian Mallee Dragons (Ctenophorus fordi)

“…*P<0.05; **P<0.01. ecosystems (Pianka, 1986;Pianka, 1989;Vitt et al, 2003). Ecological and phylogenetic structure studies have provided evidence supporting this hypothesis based on diet and habitat utilisation (Daly et al, 2008;Rabosky et al, 2011). Microhabitat specialisation has also been proposed as an underlying cause of the convergence of the species belonging to genus Ctenophorus into three morphologically distinct, albeit phylogenetically unrelated ecomorphs: burrowers, rock dwellers and spinifex/sand specialists (Greer, 1989;Melville et al, 2001;Hugall et al, 2008).…”

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