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Related Experiment Video

Updated: Feb 28, 2026

Dissection and Flat-mounting of the Threespine Stickleback Branchial Skeleton

Dissection and Flat-mounting of the Threespine Stickleback Branchial Skeleton

Published on: May 7, 2016

How Parallel Is Parallel Evolution? A Comparative Analysis in Fishes.

Krista B Oke, Gregor Rolshausen, Caroline LeBlond

The American Naturalist

|June 16, 2017

Summary

This summary is machine-generated.

Parallel evolution quantifies how often similar traits evolve independently. This study reveals significant variation in the extent and direction of parallel evolution across fish populations, emphasizing the need for precise measurement.

Keywords:

convergent evolution fishes nonparallel evolution parallel evolution repeatability

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Area of Science:

Evolutionary biology
Ecology
Genetics

Background:

Phenotypic parallelism is often cited as evidence for deterministic natural selection.
However, independent evolutionary replicates show variation in divergence extent and direction.

Purpose of the Study:

To quantify the overall degree of parallel evolution across independent studies.
To analyze the variation in direction and magnitude of environment-associated phenotypic divergence in fishes.

Main Methods:

Comparative analysis of fish evolutionary studies.
Quantification of among-population phenotypic variance explained by environmental types (e.g., predation levels, habitat).
Phenotypic change vector analysis to measure divergence direction (vector angles) and magnitude (vector lengths).

Main Results:

Significant variation exists in the extent of parallel evolution among fish populations, ranging from very high to very low.
Instances with low parallelism were found to be significant components of divergence.
The direction and magnitude of environment-associated divergence varied considerably across replicates.

Conclusions:

Quantifying the extent of parallelism is crucial, rather than merely asserting its presence.
Understanding variation in parallelism offers insights into the factors driving phenotypic divergence.
Low parallelism instances provide valuable opportunities for studying evolutionary processes.