Chira, A.M., Cooney, C.R. orcid.org/0000-0002-4872-9146, Bright, J.A. et al. (6 more authors) (2020) The signature of competition in ecomorphological traits across the avian radiation: Competition and trait macroevolution. Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences, 287 (1938). ISSN 0962-8452
Abstract
Competition for shared resources represents a fundamental driver of biological diversity. However, the tempo and mode of phenotypic evolution in deep-time has been predominantly investigated using trait evolutionary models which assume that lineages evolve independently from each other. Consequently, the role of species interactions in driving macroevolutionary dynamics remains poorly understood. Here, we quantify the prevalence for signatures of competition between related species in the evolution of ecomorphological traits across the bird radiation. We find that mechanistic trait models accounting for the effect of species interactions on phenotypic divergence provide the best fit for the data on at least one trait axis in 27 out of 59 clades ranging between 21 and 195 species. Where it occurs, the signature of competition generally coincides with positive species diversity-dependence, driven by the accumulation of lineages with similar ecologies, and we find scarce evidence for trait-dependent or negative diversity-dependent phenotypic evolution. Overall, our results suggest that the footprint of interspecific competition is often eroded in long-term patterns of phenotypic diversification, and that other selection pressures may predominantly shape ecomorphological diversity among extant species at macroevolutionary scales.
Metadata
Item Type: | Article |
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Authors/Creators: |
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Copyright, Publisher and Additional Information: | © 2020 The Authors. Published by the Royal Society under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/, which permits unrestricted use, provided the original author and source are credited. |
Keywords: | interspecific competition; ecomorphological trait evolution; avian diversification |
Dates: |
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Institution: | The University of Sheffield |
Academic Units: | The University of Sheffield > Faculty of Science (Sheffield) > School of Biosciences (Sheffield) > Department of Animal and Plant Sciences (Sheffield) |
Funding Information: | Funder Grant number The Leverhulme Trust ECF-2018-101 |
Depositing User: | Symplectic Sheffield |
Date Deposited: | 05 Feb 2021 11:12 |
Last Modified: | 05 Feb 2021 11:12 |
Status: | Published |
Publisher: | The Royal Society |
Refereed: | Yes |
Identification Number: | 10.1098/rspb.2020.1585rspb20201585 |
Open Archives Initiative ID (OAI ID): | oai:eprints.whiterose.ac.uk:169937 |