Sensory adaptations reshaped intrinsic factors underlying morphological diversification in bats.

ABSTRACT:

Background

Morphological evolution may be impacted by both intrinsic (developmental, constructional, physiological) and extrinsic (ecological opportunity and release) factors, but can intrinsic factors be altered by adaptive evolution and, if so, do they constrain or facilitate the subsequent diversification of biological form? Bats underwent deep adaptive divergences in skull shape as they evolved different sensory modes; here we investigate the potential impact of this process on two intrinsic factors that underlie morphological variation across organisms, allometry, and modularity.

Results

We use comparative phylogenetic and morphometric approaches to examine patterns of evolutionary allometry and modularity across a 3D geometric morphometric dataset spanning all major ba

SUBMITTER: Arbour JH 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC8086122 | biostudies-literature | 2021 Apr

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature