Is salamander arboreality limited by broad-scale climatic conditions?

ABSTRACT: Identifying the historical processes that drive microhabitat transitions across deep time is of great interest to evolutionary biologists. Morphological variation can often reveal such mechanisms, but in clades with high microhabitat diversity and no concomitant morphological specialization, the factors influencing animal transitions across microhabitats are more difficult to identify. Lungless salamanders (family: Plethodontidae) have transitioned into and out of the arboreal microhabitat many times throughout their evolutionary history without substantial morphological specialization. In this study, we explore the relationship between microhabitat use and broad-scale climatic patterns across species' ranges to test the role of climate in determining the availability of the arboreal micro

SUBMITTER: Baken EK 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC8372966 | biostudies-literature | 2021

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature