Trophic divergence despite morphological convergence in a continental radiation of snakes.

ABSTRACT: Ecological and phenotypic convergence is a potential outcome of adaptive radiation in response to ecological opportunity. However, a number of factors may limit convergence during evolutionary radiations, including interregional differences in biogeographic history and clade-specific constraints on form and function. Here, we demonstrate that a single clade of terrestrial snakes from Australia--the oxyuranine elapids--exhibits widespread morphological convergence with a phylogenetically diverse and distantly related assemblage of snakes from North America. Australian elapids have evolved nearly the full spectrum of phenotypic modalities that occurs among North American snakes. Much of the convergence appears to involve the recurrent evolution of stereotyped morphologies associated with for

SUBMITTER: Grundler MC 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4071538 | biostudies-literature | 2014 Jul

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature