BACKGROUND Understanding the mechanisms promoting or constraining morphological diversification within clades is a central topic in evolutionary biology. Ecological transitions are of particular interest because of their influence upon the selective forces and factors involved in phenotypic evolution. Here we focused on the humerus and mandibles of talpid moles to test whether the transition to the subterranean lifestyle impacted morphological disparity and phenotypic traits covariation between these two structures. RESULTS Our results indicate non-subterranean species occupy a significantly larger portion of the talpid moles morphospace. However, there is no difference between subterranean and non-subterranean moles in terms of the strength and direction of phenotypic integration. CONCLUSIONS Our study shows that the transition to a subterranean lifestyle significantly reduced morphological variability in talpid moles. However, this reduced disparity was not accompanied by changes in the pattern of traits covariation between the humerus and the mandible, suggesting the presence of strong phylogenetic conservatism within this pattern.

中文翻译：

---

过渡到地下生活方式对鼹鼠（哺乳纲、鼹鼠科）形态差异和整合的影响。

背景了解促进或限制进化枝内形态多样化的机制是进化生物学的中心主题。生态转变特别令人感兴趣，因为它们对表型进化中涉及的选择力和因素有影响。在这里，我们重点关注了鼹鼠的肱骨和下颌骨，以测试向地下生活方式的转变是否会影响这两种结构之间的形态差异和表型特征的协变。结果我们的结果表明，非地下物种占据了鼹鼠形态空间的显着更大部分。然而，地下鼹鼠和非地下鼹鼠在表型整合的强度和方向上没有区别。结论 我们的研究表明，向地下生活方式的转变显着降低了痣的形态变异性。然而，这种差异的缩小并没有伴随着肱骨和下颌骨之间性状共变模式的变化，这表明该模式中存在强烈的系统发育保守性。