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- Title
Testing for evolutionary trade-offs in a phylogenetic context: ecological diversification and evolution of locomotor performance in emydid turtles.
- Authors
STEPHENS, P. R.; WIENS, J. J.
- Abstract
The evolution of ecological trade-offs is an important component of ecological specialization and adaptive radiation. However, the pattern that would show that evolutionary trade-offs have occurred between traits among species has not been clearly defined. In this paper, we propose a phylogeny-based definition of an evolutionary trade-off, and apply it to an analysis of the evolution of trade-offs in locomotor performance in emydid turtles. We quantified aquatic and terrestrial speed and endurance for up to 16 species, including aquatic, semi-terrestrial and terrestrial emydids. Emydid phylogeny was reconstructed from morphological characters and nuclear and mitochondrial DNA sequences. Surprisingly, we find that there have been no trade-offs in aquatic and terrestrial speed among species. Instead, specialization to aquatic and terrestrial habitats seems to have involved trade-offs in speed and endurance. Given that trade-offs between speed and endurance may be widespread, they may underlie specialization to different habitats in many other groups.
- Subjects
TURTLES; PHYLOGENY; BIOLOGICAL evolution; HABITATS; AQUATIC animals; NUCLEOTIDE sequence; MITOCHONDRIAL DNA; GENES; ADAPTIVE radiation
- Publication
Journal of Evolutionary Biology, 2008, Vol 21, Issue 1, p77
- ISSN
1010-061X
- Publication type
Article
- DOI
10.1111/j.1420-9101.2007.01467.x