Modularity promotes morphological divergence in ray-finned fishes.

ABSTRACT: Modularity is considered a prerequisite for the evolvability of biological systems. This is because in theory, individual modules can follow quasi-independent evolutionary trajectories or evolve at different rates compared to other aspects of the organism. This may influence the potential of some modules to diverge, leading to differences in disparity. Here, we investigated this relationship between modularity, rates of morphological evolution and disparity using a phylogenetically diverse sample of ray-finned fishes. We compared the support for multiple hypotheses of evolutionary modularity and asked if the partitions delimited by the best-fitting models were also characterized by the highest evolutionary rate differentials. We found that an evolutionary module incorporating the dorsal, a

SUBMITTER: Larouche O 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5940925 | biostudies-literature | 2018 May

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature