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Phylogeny

Phylogeny

Phylogeny is concerned with the evolutionary diversification of organisms or groups of organisms. A group of organisms with a name is called a taxon (singular). Taxa (plural) can span different levels of the evolutionary hierarchy. For instance, the group containing all birds is a taxon (comprising the class Aves), and the group of all species of daisies (the genus Bellis) is a taxon. Phylogenies can likewise include just one genus (i.e., depict species relationships) or span an entire kingdom.

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The Evidence for Evolution

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Limits to Natural Selection

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Convergent Evolution

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A Concoction Pipeline for Generating Molecular Operational Taxonomic Units (MOTUs) Among Riparian and Aquatic Beetles

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Arboreality constrains morphological evolution but not species diversification in vipers.

Laura Rodrigues Vieira de Alencar¹, Marcio Martins², Gustavo Burin²

¹Departamento de Ecologia, Instituto de Biociências, Universidade de São Paulo, Rua do Matão, Travessa 14, Cidade Universitária, 05508-900 São Paulo, SP, Brazil alencarlrv@gmail.com.

Proceedings. Biological Sciences

|December 22, 2017

Summary

Arboreal vipers evolve towards intermediate body sizes and slender forms, constrained by tree-dwelling. However, this arboreal lifestyle does not impact their speciation rates compared to terrestrial vipers.

Keywords:

Ornstein–Uhlenbeck divergent selection snakes speciation

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Area of Science:

Evolutionary biology
Comparative morphology
Herpetology

Background:

Ecological opportunities often drive species and morphological diversification.
Certain environments may limit evolutionary diversification.
Vipers offer a model to study how arboreality influences morphology and speciation.

Purpose of the Study:

To investigate the impact of arboreality on viper morphology and diversification.
To compare evolutionary constraints between arboreal and terrestrial viper lineages.
To determine if arboreality affects speciation rates.

Main Methods:

Analysis of trait-evolution models in vipers.
Comparison of morphological traits (body size, tail length, body circumference) between arboreal and terrestrial species.
Application of trait-dependent diversification models.

Main Results:

Arboreal vipers exhibit constrained evolution towards intermediate body sizes, longer tails, and slender bodies.
Terrestrial vipers show a wider range of morphological variation.
Speciation rates were found to be similar across arboreal and terrestrial microhabitats.

Conclusions:

Arboreality imposes significant constraints on morphological evolution in vipers.
Despite morphological constraints, arboreality does not necessarily reduce speciation rates.
Ecological niches can shape evolutionary trajectories differently for morphology versus speciation.