Mechanical Transgressive Segregation and the Rapid Origin of Trophic Novelty.

ABSTRACT: Hybrid phenotypes are often intermediate between those of parental species. However, hybridization can generate novel phenotypes when traits are complex. For instance, even when the morphologies of individual musculo-skeletal components do not segregate outside the parental range in hybrid offspring, complex functional systems can exhibit emergent phenotypes whose mechanics exceed the parental values. To determine if transgression in mechanics could facilitate divergence during an adaptive radiation, we examined three functional systems in the trophic apparatus of Lake Malawi cichlid fishes. We conducted a simulation study of hybridization between species pairs whose morphology for three functional systems was empirically measured, to determine how the evolutionary divergence of parental s

SUBMITTER: Holzman R 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5228120 | biostudies-literature | 2017 Jan

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature