Community assembly through evolutionary diversification and dispersal in Middle American treefrogs.

Community Assembly through Evolutionary Diversification and Dispersal in Middle Ammerican Treefrogs

A phylogenetic perspective on elevational species richness patterns in Middle American treefrogs: why so few species in lowland tropical rainforests?

Differences in species richness at different elevations are widespread and important for conservation, but the causes of these patterns remain poorly understood. Here, we use a phylogenetic perspective to address the evolutionary and biogeographic processes that underlie elevational diversity patterns within a region. We focus on a diverse but well-studied fauna of tropical amphibians, the hyli...

Phylogenetic evidence for competitively driven divergence: body-size evolution in Caribbean treefrogs (Hylidae: Osteopilus).

Understanding the role of competition in explaining phenotypic diversity is a challenging problem, given that the most divergent species may no longer compete today. However, convergent evolution of extreme body sizes across communities may offer evidence of past competition. For example, many treefrog assemblages around the world have convergently evolved species with very large and small body...

A phylogenetic hot spot for evolutionary novelty in Middle American treefrogs.

Among the various types of evolutionary changes in morphology, the origin of novel structures may be the most rare and intriguing. Here we show statistically that the origins of different novel structures may be correlated and phylogenetically clustered into "hot spots" of evolutionary novelty, in a case study involving skull elements in treefrogs. We reconstruct phylogenetic relationships with...

Diversification and the evolution of dispersal ability in the tribe Brassiceae (Brassicaceae).

BACKGROUND AND AIMS Dispersal and establishment ability can influence evolutionary processes such as geographic isolation, adaptive divergence and extinction probability. Through these population-level dynamics, dispersal ability may also influence macro-evolutionary processes such as species distributions and diversification. This study examined patterns of evolution of dispersal-related fruit...