Abstract
A positive correlation between diversity and disparity/evolutionary rate is predicted by multiple evolutionary theories. However, recent empirical studies in various taxa do not always find such an association. Similarly, we find no correlation between these two levels of variation, based on cranial morphometric data and molecular phylogenetic data from 317 muroid rodent species and dipodoid outgroups, analyzed using three-dimensional geometric morphometrics. This disassociation was found using both phylogenetic and non-phylogenetic approaches, indicating that an increase in clade richness is not necessarily followed by an increase in morphological divergence and vice versa. Furthermore, the distribution of muroid families in morphospace is highly overlapping suggesting greater variation within than between clades. Taken together with the observation that families with the most distinctive cranial morphologies (nesomyids, dipodids, and spalacids) are the least diverse, indicates that evolution of new cranial morphologies may not play an important role in the diversification of muroid rodents.
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Acknowledgements
We thank all museum curators and collection managers for access to their collections: United States National Museum of Natural History (Kristofer Helgen, Darrin Lunde, Helen Kafka, and Michael D. Carleton); Field Museum of Natural History (Lawrence R. Heaney, William Stanley, John Phelps, Julian C. Kerbis-Peterhans, and Bruce D. Patterson); Museum of Vertebrate Zoology, Berkeley (James L. Patton and Chris Conroy); University of Florida Museum of Natural History (Candace McCaffery and David Reed); American Museum of Natural History (Darrin Lunde and Eileen Westwig); Laboratorio de Citogenetica Mamiferos, Universidad de Chile (Angel Spotorno and Laura Walker); and Oklohoma Museum of Natural History (Michael Mares, Janet K. Braun, Hayley Lanier, and Brandi S. Coyner). John Schenk helped with research design. Earlier versions of the manuscript benefited from comments by Gregory Erickson, Joseph Travis, Thomas Miller, and William Parker. The final version of this manuscript was improved by comments from two anonymous reviewers.
Funding
Financial support for this work was provided by a doctoral dissertation fellowship from Kuwait University to BHA (to the Florida State University) and a Grant from the National Science Foundation to SJS (DEB-0841447).
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Alhajeri, B.H., Steppan, S.J. Disparity and Evolutionary Rate Do Not Explain Diversity Patterns in Muroid Rodents (Rodentia: Muroidea). Evol Biol 45, 324–344 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11692-018-9453-z
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11692-018-9453-z