Phylogenetic evidence from freshwater crayfishes that cave adaptation is not an evolutionary dead-end.

ABSTRACT: Caves are perceived as isolated, extreme habitats with a uniquely specialized biota, which long ago led to the idea that caves are "evolutionary dead-ends." This implies that cave-adapted taxa may be doomed for extinction before they can diversify or transition to a more stable state. However, this hypothesis has not been explicitly tested in a phylogenetic framework with multiple independently evolved cave-dwelling groups. Here, we use the freshwater crayfish, a group with dozens of cave-dwelling species in multiple lineages, as a system to test this hypothesis. We consider historical patterns of lineage diversification and habitat transition as well as current patterns of geographic range size. We find that while cave-dwelling lineages have small relative range sizes and rarely transitio

SUBMITTER: Stern DB 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5656817 | biostudies-literature | 2017 Oct

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature