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Evolution of Cranial Ontogeny in South American Canids (Carnivora: Canidae) Evol. Biol. (IF 2.013) Pub Date : 2021-01-20 Valentina Segura, Guillermo H. Cassini, Francisco J. Prevosti
South American Canids are endemic and form a monophyletic clade supported by molecular and morphological data, with the exception of Urocyon cinereoargenteus, which is a typical North American form. South American canids occur in almost all environments in continent, and exhibit diet diversity and large size variation. Here we analyzed the skull ontogeny by applying 3D geometric morphometric techniques
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A Pre-registered Meta-analysis Based on Three Empirical Studies Reveals No Association Between Prenatal (Amniotic) Cortisol Exposure and Fluctuating Asymmetry in Human Infants Evol. Biol. (IF 2.013) Pub Date : 2021-01-15 Will Bushell, Martin Heil, Teresa Ventura, Manuel C. Gomes, Lisa M. Körner, Judith Lawrenz, Nora K. Schaal, Gareth Richards
Developmental instability (DI) reflects an organism’s inability to develop an ideal phenotype when challenged by genetic and environmental insults. DI can be estimated via the proxy measure of fluctuating asymmetry (FA), i.e., the small random deviations from perfect bilateral symmetry observed in the morphology of paired traits. The mechanisms involved in the genesis of FA in human populations are
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Microgeographic Morphophysiological Divergence in an Amazonian Soil Mite Evol. Biol. (IF 2.013) Pub Date : 2021-01-05 Pedro A. C. L. Pequeno, Elizabeth Franklin, Roy A. Norton
Geographic isolation plays a major role in biological diversification. Yet, adaptive divergence also can occur with ongoing gene flow, but the minimal spatial scale required for this is unclear. Here, we hypothesized that local gradients in soil clay and water contents respectively select for anti-adherent and hypoxia-tolerant phenotypes in soil invertebrates, thereby driving intraspecific phenotypic
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Unlinking the Speciation Steps: Geographical Factors Drive Changes in Sexual Signals of an Amazonian Nurse-Frog Through Body Size Variation Evol. Biol. (IF 2.013) Pub Date : 2021-01-04 Igor Yuri Fernandes, Leandro J. C. L. Moraes, Marcelo Menin, Izeni Pires Farias, Albertina Pimentel Lima, Igor Luis Kaefer
Geographical and environmental distances influence the divergence of characters among biological populations, especially on a macro spatial scale, making it difficult to interpret the individual contribution of these predictor variables in the process of population differentiation. Anurans are excellent models for multi-character evolutionary studies, due to their low vagility and frequent territoriality
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Repeatability and Validity of Phenotypic Trait Measurements in Birds Evol. Biol. (IF 2.013) Pub Date : 2021-01-03 Kalya Subasinghe, Matthew R. E. Symonds, Marta Vidal-García, Timothée Bonnet, Suzanne M. Prober, Kristen J. Williams, Janet L. Gardner
Phenotypic trait data play a central role in ecology and evolutionary research. The quality of trait data, and the findings of subsequent analyses, depend on the quality of measurement. However, most studies overlook measurement accuracy in their study designs. We investigated the repeatability of five frequently used linear measurements of avian traits: wing length, tarsus length, bill length, bill
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A Giant Eocene Whale from Ukraine Uncovers Early Cetacean Adaptations to the Fully Aquatic Life Evol. Biol. (IF 2.013) Pub Date : 2021-01-02 Svitozar Davydenko, Tetiana Shevchenko, Tamara Ryabokon, Roman Tretiakov, Pavel Gol’din
The earliest fully aquatic cetaceans arose during the Middle Eocene; however, the earliest stage of their divergence is obscure. Here, we provide a detailed redescription of an unusual early cetacean, “Platyosphys einori”, from the Late Eocene of Ukraine (37.8–35.8 million years ago), with new data on its body size, skeletal microanatomy and suggestions on phylogenetic relationships. The procedure
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The Network Ontogeny of the Parrot: Altriciality, Dynamic Skeletal Assemblages, and the Avian Body Plan Evol. Biol. (IF 2.013) Pub Date : 2020-11-23 Julieta Carril, Claudia P. Tambussi, Diego Rasskin-Gutman
We analyze the connectivity patterns and fusion events among bones leading to the adult skeletal organization during the development of the superaltricial monk parakeet (Myiopsitta monachus, Psittaciformes), providing insights about the functional and evolutionary significance in the avian structural design. By using whole mount specimens stained for cartilage and bone, we apply anatomical network
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How Changes in Functional Demands Associated with Captivity Affect the Skull Shape of a Wild Boar ( Sus scrofa ) Evol. Biol. (IF 2.013) Pub Date : 2020-11-10 Dimitri Neaux, Barbara Blanc, Katia Ortiz, Yann Locatelli, Flavie Laurens, Isabelle Baly, Cécile Callou, François Lecompte, Raphaël Cornette, Gabriele Sansalone, Ashleigh Haruda, Renate Schafberg, Jean-Denis Vigne, Vincent Debat, Anthony Herrel, Thomas Cucchi
The process of animal domestication is a key evolutionary transition in human history, within which the control of wild populations is considered a crucial first step. Yet, phenotypic changes associated with animal captivity remain challenging to document. Here, we investigated the craniofacial changes in wild boar (Sus scrofa) associated with a lifetime of growth in captivity under conditions of controlled
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Genetic Divergence Across Glacial Refugia Despite Interglacial Gene Flow in a Crested Newt Evol. Biol. (IF 2.013) Pub Date : 2020-11-02 Ben Wielstra, Daniele Salvi, Daniele Canestrelli
MtDNA-based phylogeography has illuminated the impact of the Pleistocene Ice Age on species distribution dynamics and the build-up of genetic divergence. The well-known shortcomings of mtDNA in biogeographical inference can be compensated by integrating multilocus data and species distribution modelling into phylogeography. We re-visit the phylogeography of the Italian crested newt (Triturus carnifex)
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How Exactly Did the Nose Get That Long? A Critical Rethinking of the Pinocchio Effect and How Shape Changes Relate to Landmarks Evol. Biol. (IF 2.013) Pub Date : 2020-10-30 Christian Peter Klingenberg
The Pinocchio effect has long been discussed in the literature on geometric morphometrics. It denotes the observation that Procrustes superimposition tends to distribute shape changes over many landmarks, even though a different superimposition may exist for the same landmark configurations that concentrates changes in just one or a few landmarks. This is widely seen as a flaw of Procrustes methods
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Why Clusters and Other Patterns Can Seem to be Found in Analyses of High-Dimensional Data Evol. Biol. (IF 2.013) Pub Date : 2020-10-27 F. James Rohlf
Recent papers by Cardini et al. (Evolutionary Biology 46:307–316, 2019) and Bookstein (Evolutionary Biology 46:271–302, 2019) show that, when there are many variables and when sample sizes are small, scatterplots made using the between-groups principal components analysis method can appear to indicate clear group differences with little or no overlap between samples even though the samples are all
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Darwin’s Tree of Life is Numbered. Resolving the Origins of Species by Mass Evol. Biol. (IF 2.013) Pub Date : 2020-10-24 Kevin M. Downard
A new view of the tree of life has been conceived and implemented to construct a molecular-based phylogeny for a wide range of animal species without the need for gene or protein sequences using mass map data in a so-called “phylonumerics” approach. Numerical mass map data generated following the proteolytic digestion of proteins expressed across an array of organisms are used to build phylogenetic-like
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The Link Between Adaptive Memory and Cultural Attraction: New Insights for Evolutionary Ethnobiology Evol. Biol. (IF 2.013) Pub Date : 2020-10-11 Risoneide Henriques da Silva, Washington Soares Ferreira Júnior, Joelson Moreno Brito Moura, Ulysses Paulino Albuquerque
In this paper, we present the points of convergence between of adaptive memory and cultural attraction, and how these two approaches can help evolutionary ethnobiologists understand human cognition and behavior in relation to nature. In addition, we present empirical evidence of how the union of genetic, cultural and ecological factors can shape the human mind and behavior, aspects that are often dissociated
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Interrelations Between the Cranium, the Mandible and Muscle Architecture in Modern Domestic Dogs Evol. Biol. (IF 2.013) Pub Date : 2020-09-18 Colline Brassard, Marilaine Merlin, Claude Guintard, Elodie Monchâtre-Leroy, Jacques Barrat, Cécile Callou, Raphaël Cornette, Anthony Herrel
Many studies have attested to the consequences of the recent and intense artificial selection on the morphological variability of the cranium and mandible in domestic animals. However, the functional relations of the cranium with other constituents of the masticatory apparatus (the mandibles and the adductor muscles) have rarely been explored. Previous work has demonstrated strong relationships between
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Examination of Sample Size Determination in Integration Studies Based on the Integration Coefficient of Variation (ICV) Evol. Biol. (IF 2.013) Pub Date : 2020-08-24 Hyunwoo Jung, Mark A. Conaway, Noreen von Cramon-Taubadel
Although there are various indices available for calculating morphological integration, the integration coefficient of variation (ICV) is most suited for assessing magnitudes of integration within and between morphological variance/covariance (V/CV) matrices. However, it is currently not known what the effects of varying sample sizes are on the reliable estimation of distributions of ICV scores. In
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Male Sexual Trait Decay in Two Asexual Springtail Populations Follows Neutral Mutation Accumulation Theory Evol. Biol. (IF 2.013) Pub Date : 2020-08-20 Andries Augustus Kampfraath, Tjeerd Pieter Dudink, Ken Kraaijeveld, Jacintha Ellers, Zaira Valentina Zizzari
The transition to asexual reproduction is frequent and widespread across the tree of life and constitutes a major life history change. Without sexual reproduction, selection on sexually selected traits is expected to be weaker or absent, allowing the decay and ultimately loss of sexual traits. In this study, we applied an experimental approach to investigate the decay of reproductive traits under asexuality
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Correction to: Eastern Japanese Dictyostelia Species Adapt While Populations Exhibit Neutrality Evol. Biol. (IF 2.013) Pub Date : 2020-08-19 Shun Adachi
The original version of this article unfortunately contained an error. The authors would like to correct the error with this erratum.
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Walking on Kendall’s Shape Space: Understanding Shape Spaces and Their Coordinate Systems Evol. Biol. (IF 2.013) Pub Date : 2020-08-18 Christian Peter Klingenberg
More and more analyses of biological shapes are using the techniques of geometric morphometrics based on configurations of landmarks in two or three dimensions. A fundamental concept at the core of these analyses is Kendall’s shape space and local approximations to it by shape tangent spaces. Kendall’s shape space is complex because it is a curved surface and, for configurations with more than three
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The Importance of Intraspecific Variation for Niche Differentiation and Species Distribution Models: The Ecologically Diverse Frog Pleurodema thaul as Study Case Evol. Biol. (IF 2.013) Pub Date : 2020-07-20 Aura M. Barria; Daniel Zamorano; Andrés Parada; Fabio A. Labra; Sergio A. Estay; Leonardo D. Bacigalupe
Environmental shifts are projected to lead to expansions, contractions and shifts in the geographic range of species in response to climate change. Most distribution forecasting methods assume that species respond to the environment as an undifferentiated entity along their entire distribution. However, environmental heterogeneity along a species’ range plays a key role in driving the evolutionary
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A Morphological Method to Approximate Jumping Performance in Anurans for Macroevolutionary Studies Evol. Biol. (IF 2.013) Pub Date : 2020-07-17 Bryan H. Juarez; Daniel S. Moen; Dean C. Adams
Organismal performance is often key in understanding macroevolutionary patterns but characterizing performance across many species is challenging, as the disparate geographic locations of taxa often prohibit in vivo measures. In theory, however, inferences on the evolution of performance could be investigated using anatomical approximations of performance parameters, allowing for a wider range of species
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A Registration and Deep Learning Approach to Automated Landmark Detection for Geometric Morphometrics Evol. Biol. (IF 2.013) Pub Date : 2020-07-09 Jay Devine; Jose D. Aponte; David C. Katz; Wei Liu; Lucas D. Lo Vercio; Nils D. Forkert; Ralph Marcucio; Christopher J. Percival; Benedikt Hallgrímsson
Geometric morphometrics is the statistical analysis of landmark-based shape variation and its covariation with other variables. Over the past two decades, the gold standard of landmark data acquisition has been manual detection by a single observer. This approach has proven accurate and reliable in small-scale investigations. However, big data initiatives are increasingly common in biology and morphometrics
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Link Your Sites (LYS) Scripts: Automated Search of Protein Structures and Mapping of Sites Under Positive Selection Detected by PAML Evol. Biol. (IF 2.013) Pub Date : 2020-06-30 Lys Sanz Moreta; Rute R. da Fonseca
The visualization of the molecular context of an amino acid mutation in a protein structure is crucial for the assessment of its functional impact and the understanding of its evolutionary implications. Currently, searches for fast evolving amino acid positions using codon substitution models like those implemented in PAML (Yang and Nielsen in Estimating synonymous and nonsynonymous substitution rates
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Effects of Phenotypic Robustness on Adaptive Evolutionary Dynamics Evol. Biol. (IF 2.013) Pub Date : 2020-06-20 Emanuele Rigato; Giuseppe Fusco
Theoretical and experimental studies have provided evidence for a positive role of phenotype resistance to genetic mutation in enhancing long-term adaptation to novel environments. With the aim of contributing to an understanding of the origin and evolution of phenotypic robustness to genetic mutations in organismal systems, we adopted a theoretical approach, elaborating on a classical mathematical
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Ancestral State Estimation with Phylogenetic Ridge Regression Evol. Biol. (IF 2.013) Pub Date : 2020-06-17 Silvia Castiglione; Carmela Serio; Alessandro Mondanaro; Marina Melchionna; Francesco Carotenuto; Mirko Di Febbraro; Antonio Profico; Davide Tamagnini; Pasquale Raia
The inclusion of fossil phenotypes as ancestral character values at nodes in phylogenetic trees is known to increase both the power and reliability of phylogenetic comparative methods (PCMs) applications. We implemented the R function RRphylo as to integrate fossil phenotypic information as ancestral character values. We tested the new implementation, named RRphylo-noder (which is available as part
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Making Heads or Tails of Combined Landmark Configurations in Geometric Morphometric Data Evol. Biol. (IF 2.013) Pub Date : 2020-06-05 Michael L. Collyer; Mark A. Davis; Dean C. Adams
Researchers using geometric morphometric methods can be confronted with a need to combine separate landmark configurations from the same research subjects as a more holistic description of organismal morphology. Combining configurations might be valid if single configurations represent separate anatomical structures that can change position with respect to each other or have been shown to be phenotypically
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Correction to: The Origin(s) of Modern Amphibians: A Commentary Evol. Biol. (IF 2.013) Pub Date : 2020-05-29 David Marjanović, Michel Laurin
The page where the original version of this article is posted unfortunately contained an error. In that page, the supplementary material is not currently included along with the article and this problem has been corrected with this erratum.
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Evolution of the Mammalian Ear: An Evolvability Hypothesis. Evol. Biol. (IF 2.013) Pub Date : 2020-05-27 Anne Le Maître,Nicole D S Grunstra,Cathrin Pfaff,Philipp Mitteroecker
Encapsulated within the temporal bone and comprising the smallest elements of the vertebrate skeleton, the ear is key to multiple senses: balance, posture control, gaze stabilization, and hearing. The transformation of the primary jaw joint into the mammalian ear ossicles is one of the most iconic transitions in vertebrate evolution, but the drivers of this complex evolutionary trajectory are not fully
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Comparing Rates of Linage Diversification with Rates of Size and Shape Evolution in Catarrhine Crania Evol. Biol. (IF 2.013) Pub Date : 2020-04-27 Evan A. Simons; Stephen R. Frost; Katerina Harvati; Kieran McNulty; Michelle Singleton
Many authors have hypothesized an association between rates of morphological evolution and rates of species diversification, however, this association has yet to be empirically tested in the primate cranium. In this investigation, we used phylogeny-based approaches to examine the relationship between rates of species diversification, rates of cranial size and shape evolution, and observed cranial morphological
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The Occasional Perils of Reflection (Across the Midline; in Geometric Morphometrics) Evol. Biol. (IF 2.013) Pub Date : 2020-04-21 David C. Katz
Manual landmark data collection on large samples takes a long time. Several options exist to speed the process, though each introduces problems or raises concerns of its own. For bilaterally symmetric structures (e.g., crania), some recent papers recommend limiting landmark collection to one side and the anatomical midline, then approximating the true bilateral configuration by merging the hemi-form
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Facultative Transitions Have Trouble Committing, But Stable Life Cycles Predict Salamander Genome Size Evolution Evol. Biol. (IF 2.013) Pub Date : 2020-03-31 Ronald M. Bonett; Alexander J. Hess; Nicholus M. Ledbetter
Facultative traits can provide phenotypic lability in dynamic environments, but it is unclear how weaving between disparate habitats impacts non-facultative traits that are carried along the way. The life cycles of salamanders are associated with distinct ontogenies, aquatic-to-terrestrial (biphasic), completely-terrestrial (direct development), and completely-aquatic (larval form paedomorphic). Salamanders
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How Does Masticatory Muscle Architecture Covary with Mandibular Shape in Domestic Dogs? Evol. Biol. (IF 2.013) Pub Date : 2020-03-19 Colline Brassard; Marilaine Merlin; Elodie Monchâtre-Leroy; Claude Guintard; Jacques Barrat; Cécile Callou; Raphaël Cornette; Anthony Herrel
Despite the considerable scientific interest in the variability and patterns of integration in the dog skull, how these patterns impact or are driven by function remains largely unexplored. Since the mandible is directly involved in mastication, it can be expected to be directly related to the development of the adductor and abductor muscles. Here, we explore whether variation in the architecture and
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Measuring Complex Morphological Traits with 3D Photogrammetry: A Case Study with Deer Antlers Evol. Biol. (IF 2.013) Pub Date : 2020-03-19 Masahito Tsuboi; Bjørn Tore Kopperud; Christine Syrowatka; Mark Grabowski; Kjetil L. Voje; Christophe Pélabon; Thomas F. Hansen
The increasing availability of 3D-imaging technology provides new opportunities for measuring morphology. Photogrammetry enables easy 3D-data acquisition compared to conventional methods and here we assess its accuracy for measuring the size of deer antlers, a complex morphological structure. Using a proprietary photogrammetry software, we generated 3D images of antlers for 92 individuals from 29 species
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Modularity of the Neck in Birds (Aves) Evol. Biol. (IF 2.013) Pub Date : 2020-03-18 Léa Terray; Olivia Plateau; Anick Abourachid; Christine Böhmer; Arnaud Delapré; Xavier de la Bernardie; Raphaël Cornette
The neck connects the head and the trunk and is the key structure allowing all movements of the head. The neck morphology of birds is the most variable among living tetrapods, including significant differences in the number and shape of the cervical vertebrae. Despite these differences, according to the literature, three morphofunctional regions (i.e., modules) have been identified along the neck.
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Climatic Niche Evolution in the Arremon brunneinucha Complex (Aves: Passerellidae) in a Mesoamerican Landscape Evol. Biol. (IF 2.013) Pub Date : 2020-03-16 Israel Moreno-Contreras; Luis A. Sánchez-González; María del Coro Arizmendi; David A. Prieto-Torres; Adolfo G. Navarro-Sigüenza
The identification of mechanisms that have generated biodiversity is one of the major tasks in biogeography and evolutionary biology. Here, using a set of environmental variables and historical presence records, we assessed whether closely related allopatric lineages in the Arremon brunneinucha (Aves: Passerellidae) complex are either more ecologically similar or different throughout their distribution
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The Natural Selection of Metabolism Explains Curvature in Fossil Body Mass Evolution Evol. Biol. (IF 2.013) Pub Date : 2020-02-05 Lars Witting
The natural selection of metabolism and mass can explain inter-specific body mass allometries from prokaryotes to mammals (Witting in Theor Popul Biol 117:23–42, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tpb.2017.08.005, 2017a), with allometric exponents that depend on the selected metabolism and the packing of home ranges in predominately one (1D), two (2D), or three (3D) spatial dimensions. The predicted exponent
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Cross-validated Between Group PCA Scatterplots: A Solution to Spurious Group Separation? Evol. Biol. (IF 2.013) Pub Date : 2020-02-03 Andrea Cardini; P. David Polly
Between group PCA (bgPCA) has been developed to summarize group differences in high dimensional spaces like in geometric morphometrics and microarray data where the number of variables is often larger than sample size. However, it has been very recently shown that this technique inflates apparent differences as seen in scatterplots and, in extreme cases, can even create differences where there are
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Considering Gender-Biased Assumptions in Evolutionary Biology Evol. Biol. (IF 2.013) Pub Date : 2020-02-01 Ingrid Ahnesjö; Jaelle C. Brealey; Katerina P. Günter; Ivain Martinossi-Allibert; Jennifer Morinay; Mattias Siljestam; Josefine Stångberg; Paula Vasconcelos
Many organisms studied by evolutionary biologists have different sexes, and the evolution of separate sexes and sexual dimorphisms in morphology and behaviour are central questions in evolutionary biology. Considering scientists to be embedded in a social and cultural context, we are also subjected to the risk of gender-biased assumptions and stereotypical thinking to appear when working on topics
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Theoretical Insights of Evolutionary Psychology: New Opportunities for Studies in Evolutionary Ethnobiology Evol. Biol. (IF 2.013) Pub Date : 2020-01-29 Joelson Moreno Brito Moura; Risoneide Henriques da Silva; Washington Soares Ferreira Júnior; Taline Cristina da Silva; Ulysses Paulino Albuquerque
In this article, we present the central ideas of evolutionary psychology, and discuss how their assumptions can help ethnobiologists to understand the dynamic relationship between people and their environments. In this sense, investigating this relationship from an evolutionary perspective can bring new empirical evidence about human evolution, also contributing to both evolutionary psychology and
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Reimaging the Tree of Life Using a Mass Based Phylonumerics Approach Evol. Biol. (IF 2.013) Pub Date : 2020-01-22 Elma H. Akand; Kevin M. Downard
Evolutionary relationships among and across species are almost exclusively examined through phylogenetic analysis based on trees constructed using gene sequences. Such trees are not without their limitations. Here we show that sets of numbers representing the masses of peptide segments within proteins encoded by those genes can also be used to construct trees of life employing a phylonumerics approach
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Evolutionary History and Not Heterochronic Modifications Associated with Viviparity Drive Head Shape Differentiation in a Reproductive Polymorphic Species, Salamandra salamandra Evol. Biol. (IF 2.013) Pub Date : 2019-11-20 Lucía Alarcón-Ríos; Alfredo G. Nicieza; Antigoni Kaliontzopoulou; David Buckley; Guillermo Velo-Antón
Identifying the evolutionary processes that underlie morphological variation at the intraspecific level is cornerstone for understanding the drivers of phenotypic diversity at higher macro-evolutionary scales. The fire salamander, Salamandra salamandra, exhibits exceptional intraspecific variation in multiple phenotypic traits (i.e. body size, head shape, coloration, reproductive modes). Pueriparity
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The Skull Integration Pattern and Internal Constraints in Myotis myotis – Myotis blythii Species Group (Vespertilionidae, Chiroptera) Might be Shaped by Natural Selection During Evolution Along the Genetic Line of Least Resistance Evol. Biol. (IF 2.013) Pub Date : 2019-11-02 Igor Dzeverin
Evolutionary dynamics of covariation patterns in craniometric traits was studied for bats from the Myotis myotis–Myotis blythii species group (Mammalia, Chiroptera, Vespertilionidae) namely M.m.myotis, M.b.oxygnathus, M.b.omari, M.b.blythii, and M.b.altaicus. These species evolved towards increasing the size. One more species, M.dasycneme, which is phylogenetically, morphologically, and ecologically
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Macroevolution of Toothed Whales Exceptional Relative Brain Size Evol. Biol. (IF 2.013) Pub Date : 2019-10-21 Carmela Serio; Silvia Castiglione; Gianmarco Tesone; Martina Piccolo; Marina Melchionna; Alessandro Mondanaro; Mirko Di Febbraro; Pasquale Raia
Toothed whales (Odontoceti, Cetacea) are well-known for their ability to produce complex vocalizations, to use tools, to possess self-recognition, and for their extreme behavioural plasticity. The toothed whale intelligence is said to compete with that of primates, so does their extremely large brain to body size ratio. Common explanations for the acquisition of such large brains over the evolutionary
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Seeing Distinct Groups Where There are None: Spurious Patterns from Between-Group PCA Evol. Biol. (IF 2.013) Pub Date : 2019-10-18 Andrea Cardini; Paul O’Higgins; F. James Rohlf
Using sampling experiments, we found that, when there are fewer groups than variables, between-groups PCA (bgPCA) may suggest surprisingly distinct differences among groups for data in which none exist. While apparently not noticed before, the reasons for this problem are easy to understand. A bgPCA captures the g − 1 dimensions of variation among the g group means, but only a fraction of the \(\sum
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Overall Bone Structure as Assessed by Slice-by-Slice Profile Evol. Biol. (IF 2.013) Pub Date : 2019-10-14 Eli Amson
Quantifying the inner structure of bones is central to various analyses dealing with the phenotypic evolution of animals with an ossified skeleton. Computed tomography allows to assess the repartition of bone tissue within an entire skeletal element. Two parameters of importance for such analyses are the global compactness (Cg) and total cross-sectional area (Tt.Ar). However, no open-source, time-efficient
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Pathologies of Between-Groups Principal Components Analysis in Geometric Morphometrics Evol. Biol. (IF 2.013) Pub Date : 2019-10-11 Fred L. Bookstein
Good empirical applications of geometric morphometrics (GMM) typically involve several times more variables than specimens, a situation the statistician refers to as “high p/n,” where p is the count of variables and n the count of specimens. This note calls your attention to two predictable catastrophic failures of one particular multivariate statistical technique, between-groups principal components
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The Shape of Weaver: Investigating Shape Disparity in Orb-Weaving Spiders (Araneae, Araneidae) Using Geometric Morphometrics Evol. Biol. (IF 2.013) Pub Date : 2019-09-18 Robert J. Kallal; Andrew J. Moore; Gustavo Hormiga
Sexual size dimorphism in orb-weaving spiders is a relatively well-studied phenomenon, and numerous works have documented evolutionary variation in interspecific size and degree of dimorphism. To date, these studies have been largely limited to assessing the evolution of a single or few linear measurements correlated with body size. While the descriptive and comparative literature is rich with qualitative
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The Inhibitory Cascade Model is Not a Good Predictor of Molar Size Covariation Evol. Biol. (IF 2.013) Pub Date : 2019-06-27 Charles C. Roseman; Lucas K. Delezene
The inhibitory cascade (IC) model is a widely used evolutionary developmental explanation of among-species differences in relative molar tooth size. The IC model posits that, as molars develop from front to back, the relative strength of activating and inhibiting influences establishes a “ratcheting” mechanism leading to predictable relative molar sizes. Such a constraint on molar covariation would
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The Apex Set-Up for the Major Transitions in Individuality Evol. Biol. (IF 2.013) Pub Date : 2019-06-20 Baruch Rinkevich
Morphological and functional hierarchies occurring in contemporary biological entities are amalgamated via a small number of progressive key-steps termed as Major Transition in Evolution (MTE) that encompass steps of Major Transition in Individuality (MTI). Literature views MTE/MTI in nature as a sequential increase in complexity, and has contributed insights into the emergence of genuine MTI candidates
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Description and Analysis of Spatial Patterns in Geometric Morphometric Data Evol. Biol. (IF 2.013) Pub Date : 2019-05-28 Paula N. Gonzalez; Noelia Bonfili; Mariana N. Vallejo Azar; Jimena Barbeito-Andres; Valeria Bernal; S. Ivan Perez
The development of techniques for the acquisition of high-resolution 3D images, such as computed tomography and magnetic resonance imaging, has opened new avenues to the study of complex morphologies. Detailed descriptions of internal and external traits can be now obtained, allowing the intensive sampling of surface points. In this paper, we introduce a morphometric and statistical framework, grounded
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Craniofacial Allometry is a Rule in Evolutionary Radiations of Placentals Evol. Biol. (IF 2.013) Pub Date : 2019-05-27 Cardini Andrea
It has been suggested that larger species of mammals tend to become long-faced when they diverge in size during an evolutionary radiation. However, whether this allometric pattern, reminiscent of ontogenetic changes in skull proportions, is indeed a rule has yet to be thoroughly tested. Using ~ 6000 adult specimens from 14 phylogenetically well separated and ecomorphologically distinctive lineages
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3D Photogrammetry of Bat Skulls: Perspectives for Macro-evolutionary Analyses Evol. Biol. (IF 2.013) Pub Date : 2019-05-22 Giada Giacomini; Dino Scaravelli; Anthony Herrel; Alessio Veneziano; Danilo Russo; Richard P. Brown; Carlo Meloro
Photogrammetry (PH) is relatively cheap, easy to use, flexible and portable but its power and limitations have not been fully explored for studies of small animals. Here we assessed the accuracy of PH for the reconstruction of 3D digital models of bat skulls by evaluating its potential for evolutionary morphology studies at interspecific (19 species) level. Its reliability was assessed against the
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What is It Like to be a Crab? A Complex Network Analysis of Eucaridan Evolution Evol. Biol. (IF 2.013) Pub Date : 2019-05-02 Agustín Ostachuk
Eucaridan evolution involved a process starting from a body organization characterized by an elongate and cylindrical cephalothorax, a well-developed abdomen composed of swimming appendages, ending in a tail fan formed by flattened uropods and a telson. This process would lead, ultimately, to a body organization characterized by a shortened and depressed cephalothorax, and a reduced and ventrally folded
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The Coral of Life Evol. Biol. (IF 2.013) Pub Date : 2019-04-30 János Podani
The Tree of Life (ToL) has been of central importance in the biological sciences, usually understood as a model or a metaphor, and portrayed in various graphical forms to summarize the history of life as a single diagram. If it is seen as a mathematical construct—a rooted graph theoretical tree or, as more recently viewed, a directed network [Network of Life (NoL)]—then its proper visualization is
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Age-Specific Reproductive Investment and Offspring Performance in an Orb-web Spider, Argiope radon Evol. Biol. (IF 2.013) Pub Date : 2019-04-29 Mohammad Ameri; Darrell J. Kemp; Katherine L. Barry; Marie E. Herberstein
Temporal variation in reproductive investment, e.g. maternal egg provisioning, has a substantial effect on offspring fitness therefore has received great attention by evolutionary biologists. Maternal allocation into egg size and egg content directly influences performance of offspring in many taxa, but spiders have rarely been investigated in this regard. In this study, we investigate the temporal
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Genetic Variation in Metabolic Rate and Correlations with Other Energy Budget Components and Life History in Daphnia magna Evol. Biol. (IF 2.013) Pub Date : 2019-03-19 Sigurd Einum; Erlend I. F. Fossen; Victor Parry; Christophe Pélabon
Much is known about the genetic variance in certain components of metabolism, most notably resting and maximum metabolic rate. This is in stark contrast to the lack of information on genetic variance in the metabolic rate of individuals that feed and express routine activity, and how this rate correlates with other components of the energy budget or life history traits. Here we quantify genetic variance
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Ecological and Spatial Patterns Associated with Diversification of the Shrub Genus Tetraglochin along Southern-Central Andes (Rosaceae) Evol. Biol. (IF 2.013) Pub Date : 2019-02-26 Diego L. Salariato; Juan M. Acosta; A. M. Cialdella
In addition to the degree of geographical isolation (sympatry, parapatry, allopatry and peripatry), ecology can be an important factor promoting diversification of lineages, both by niche divergence as well as niche conservatism. Tetraglochin is a genus of shrubs with six species distributed along the Southern and Central Andes, from Peru to southern Argentina and central Chile. Although monophyly
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Do Monozygotic Twins Have Higher Genetic Quality than Dizygotic Twins and Singletons? Hints from Attractiveness Ratings and Self-Reported Health Evol. Biol. (IF 2.013) Pub Date : 2019-02-09 Satoshi Kanazawa; Nancy L. Segal
Evolutionary theories generally concur that sexual reproduction and genetic recombination evolved to maximize genetic variability. Thus, the existence of monozygotic (MZ) twins, which do not take advantage of genetic recombination for each offspring, poses a puzzle. Evolutionary logic of inclusive fitness suggests that parents with high-quality genes may be more likely to produce MZ twins. Analyses
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Patterns and Constraints of Craniofacial Variation in Colobine Monkeys: Disentangling the Effects of Phylogeny, Allometry and Diet Evol. Biol. (IF 2.013) Pub Date : 2019-01-31 Ronan Ledevin; Daisuke Koyabu
Leaf-eating monkeys (colobines) are a highly diversified subfamily with 61 species in ten genera, in which patterns and constraints of morphological evolution are still poorly resolved. In the present study, we measured the skulls of 452 specimens collected from different museums worldwide. Using one of the most extensive samples ever employed, and geometric morphometric techniques, we aimed to elucidate
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Multiple Components of Phylogenetic Non-stationarity in the Evolution of Brain Size in Fossil Hominins Evol. Biol. (IF 2.013) Pub Date : 2019-01-24 José Alexandre Felizola Diniz-Filho; Lucas Jardim; Alessandro Mondanaro; Pasquale Raia
One outstanding phenotypic character in Homo is its brain evolution. Pagel (Morphology, shape and phylogeny, CRC Press, Boca Raton, 2002) performed a phylogenetic analysis of the evolution of cranial capacity (as a surrogate of brain size) in fossil hominins, finding evidence for gradual evolutionary change with accelerating rate. Since Pagel’s pioneering investigation, the hominin fossil record expanded
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On the Typology of Relations Evol. Biol. (IF 2.013) Pub Date : 2019-01-02 Evgeny V. Mavrodiev; David M. Williams; Malte C. Ebach
The possibility of undertaking matrix/optimization-free cladistic analysis is one of the most interesting ideas to emerge in the last few decades from within the field of systematics, particularly in the development of cladistics. The purpose of this paper is to design further opportunities and prospects made possible by eliminating the matrix as the primary source of data representation. The main
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