The repeated evolution of stripe patterns is correlated with body morphology in the adaptive radiations of East African cichlid fishes.

ABSTRACT: Color patterns are often linked to the behavioral and morphological characteristics of an animal, contributing to the effectiveness of such patterns as antipredatory strategies. Species-rich adaptive radiations, such as the freshwater fish family Cichlidae, provide an exciting opportunity to study trait correlations at a macroevolutionary scale. Cichlids are also well known for their diversity and repeated evolution of color patterns and body morphology. To study the evolutionary dynamics between color patterns and body morphology, we used an extensive dataset of 461 species. A phylogenetic supertree of these species shows that stripe patterns evolved ~70 times independently and were lost again ~30 times. Moreover, stripe patterns show strong signs of correlated evolution with body elongat

SUBMITTER: Urban S 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC8820146 | biostudies-literature | 2022 Feb

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature