Morphology captures diet and locomotor types in rodents.

ABSTRACT: To understand the functional meaning of morphological features, we need to relate what we know about morphology and ecology in a meaningful, quantitative framework. Closely related species usually share more phenotypic features than distant ones, but close relatives do not necessarily have the same ecologies. Rodents are the most diverse group of living mammals, with impressive ecomorphological diversification. We used museum collections and ecological literature to gather data on morphology, diet and locomotion for 208 species of rodents from different bioregions to investigate how morphological similarity and phylogenetic relatedness are associated with ecology. After considering differences in body size and shared evolutionary history, we find that unrelated species with similar ecologi

SUBMITTER: Verde Arregoitia LD 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5319359 | biostudies-literature | 2017 Jan

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature