Origins, bottlenecks, and present-day diversity: Patterns of morphospace occupation in marine bivalves

Shan Huang, Kaustuv Roy, David Jablonski

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

16 Citations (Scopus)

Abstract

It has long been known that species should not be distributed randomly in morphospace (a multidimensional trait space), even under simple models of evolution. However, recent studies suggest that position in morphospace can affect aspects of evolution such as the durations of clades and the species richness of their constituent taxa. Here we investigate the dynamics of morphospace occupancy in living and fossil marine bivalves using shell size and aspect ratio, two functionally important traits. Multiple lines of evidence indicate that the center of a family's morphospace today represents a location where taxonomic diversity is maximized, apparently owing to lower extinction rates. Within individual bivalve families, species with narrow geographic ranges are distributed throughout the morphospace but widespread species, which are generally expected to be extinction resistant, tend to be concentrated near the center. The morphospace centers of most species-rich families today (defined as the median value for all species in the family) tend to be close to the positions of the family founders, further suggesting an association between position in morphospace and net diversification rates. However, trajectories of individual subclades (genera) are inconsistent with the center of morphospace being an evolutionary attractor.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)735-746
Number of pages12
JournalEvolution
Volume69
Issue number3
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 1 Mar 2015

Bibliographical note

Publisher Copyright:
© 2015 The Author(s).

Keywords

  • Clade age
  • Disparity
  • Extinction
  • Geographic range
  • Species diversity

ASJC Scopus subject areas

  • Ecology, Evolution, Behavior and Systematics
  • Genetics
  • General Agricultural and Biological Sciences

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