Changing allometric relationships among fossil and Recent populations in two colonial species.

ABSTRACT: Allometry is vital for understanding the mechanisms underlying phenotypic evolution. Despite a large body of literature on allometry, studies based on fossil time series are limited for solitary organisms and nonexistent for colonial organisms. Allometric relationships have been found to be relatively constant across Recent populations of the same species, separated by space, but variable among fossil populations separated by thousands of years. How stable are allometric relationships at the module level for colonial organisms? We address this question using two extant species of the cheilostome bryozoan Microporella with fossil records spanning the Pleistocene of New Zealand. We investigate size covariation between feeding modules and three traits with separate functions (reproductive, re

SUBMITTER: Di Martino E 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC9805184 | biostudies-literature | 2022 Oct

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature