A multi-peak performance landscape for scale biting in an adaptive radiation of pupfishes.

ABSTRACT: The physical interactions between organisms and their environment ultimately shape diversification rates, but the contributions of biomechanics to evolutionary divergence are frequently overlooked. Here, we estimated a performance landscape for biting in an adaptive radiation of Cyprinodon pupfishes, including scale-biting and molluscivore specialists, and compared performance peaks with previous estimates of the fitness landscape in this system. We used high-speed video to film feeding strikes on gelatin cubes by scale eater, molluscivore, generalist and hybrid pupfishes and measured bite dimensions. We then measured five kinematic variables from 227 strikes using the SLEAP machine-learning model. We found a complex performance landscape with two distinct peaks best predicted gel-biting p

SUBMITTER: Tan A 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC11418179 | biostudies-literature | 2024 Aug

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature