Island colonisation and the evolutionary rates of body size in insular neonate snakes.

ABSTRACT: Island colonisation by animal populations is often associated with dramatic shifts in body size. However, little is known about the rates at which these evolutionary shifts occur, under what precise selective pressures and the putative role played by adaptive plasticity on driving such changes. Isolation time played a significant role in the evolution of body size in island Tiger snake populations, where adaptive phenotypic plasticity followed by genetic assimilation fine-tuned neonate body and head size (hence swallowing performance) to prey size. Here I show that in long isolated islands (>6000 years old) and mainland populations, neonate body mass and snout-vent length are tightly correlated with the average prey body mass available at each site. Regression line equations were used to c

SUBMITTER: Aubret F 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4815452 | biostudies-literature | 2015 Oct

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature