Opportunity begets opportunity to drive macroevolutionary dynamics of a diverse lizard radiation.

ABSTRACT: Evolution proceeds unevenly across the tree of life, with some lineages accumulating diversity more rapidly than others. Explaining this disparity is challenging as similar evolutionary triggers often do not result in analogous shifts across the tree, and similar shifts may reflect different evolutionary triggers. We used a combination of approaches to directly consider such context-dependency and untangle the complex network of processes that shape macroevolutionary dynamics, focusing on Pleurodonta, a diverse radiation of lizards. Our approach shows that some lineage-wide signatures are lost when conditioned on sublineages: while viviparity appears to accelerate diversification, its effect size is overestimated by its association with the Andean mountains. Conversely, some signals that e

SUBMITTER: Alencar LRV 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC11424082 | biostudies-literature | 2024 Sep

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature