Isotopic niches do not follow the expectations of niche conservatism in the bird genus Cinclodes
Rader, J. A.; Matute, D. R.
Show abstract
Phenotypic traits are expected to be more similar among closely related species than among species that diverged long ago (all else being equal). This pattern, known as phylogenetic niche conservatism, also applies to traits that are important to determine the niche of species. To test this hypothesis on ecological niches, we analyzed isotopic data from 254 museum study skins from 12 of the 16 species of the bird genus Cinclodes and measured stable isotope ratios for four different elements: Carbon, Nitrogen, Hydrogen and Oxygen. We find that all traits, measured individually, or as a composite measurement, lack any phylogenetic signal, which in turn suggests a high level of lability in ecological niches. We compared these metrics to the measurements of morphological traits in the same genus and found that isotopic niches are uniquely evolutionarily labile compared to other traits. Our results suggest that, in Cinclodes, the realized niche evolves much faster than expected by the constraints of phylogenetic history and poses the question of whether this is a general pattern across the tree of life.
Matching journals
The top 5 journals account for 50% of the predicted probability mass.
Similar papers in this journal
Similar papers in this journal
- Multivariate distributions of behavioural, morphological, and ontogenetic traits in hybrids bring new insights into the divergence of sympatric Arctic charr morphs. 91%
- Transcriptomics provides a robust framework for the relationships of the major clades of cladobranch sea slugs (Mollusca, Gastropoda, Heterobranchia), but fails to resolve the position of the enigmatic genus Embletonia 91%
- Evolution in Sinocyclocheilus cavefish is marked by rate shifts, reversals and origin of novel traits 91%
Similar papers in this journal
"Similar papers" are the closest papers from that journal in the model's embedding space. They show what the match is built on, but the ranking comes mostly from a classifier over the whole training set, not from these examples alone.