Adaptive phenotypic plasticity in the Midas cichlid fish pharyngeal jaw and its relevance in adaptive radiation |
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Authors: | Moritz Muschick Marta Barluenga Walter Salzburger and Axel Meyer |
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Institution: | (1) Lehrstuhl f?r Zoologie und Evolutionsbiologie, Department of Biology, University of Konstanz, Universit?tsstrasse 10, 78457 Konstanz, Germany;(2) Zoological Institute, University of Basel, Vesalgasse 1, 4051 Basel, Switzerland;(3) Dept. Biodiversity and Evolutionary Biology, Museo Nacional de Ciencias Naturales CSIC, Jos? Guti?rrez Abascal 2, 28006 Madrid, Spain |
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Abstract: | Background Phenotypic evolution and its role in the diversification of organisms is a central topic in evolutionary biology. A neglected
factor during the modern evolutionary synthesis, adaptive phenotypic plasticity, more recently attracted the attention of
many evolutionary biologists and is now recognized as an important ingredient in both population persistence and diversification.
The traits and directions in which an ancestral source population displays phenotypic plasticity might partly determine the
trajectories in morphospace, which are accessible for an adaptive radiation, starting from the colonization of a novel environment.
In the case of repeated colonizations of similar environments from the same source population this "flexible stem" hypothesis
predicts similar phenotypes to arise in repeated subsequent radiations. The Midas Cichlid (Amphilophus spp.) in Nicaragua has radiated in parallel in several crater-lakes seeded by populations originating from the Nicaraguan
Great Lakes. Here, we tested phenotypic plasticity in the pharyngeal jaw of Midas Cichlids. The pharyngeal jaw apparatus of
cichlids, a second set of jaws functionally decoupled from the oral ones, is known to mediate ecological specialization and
often differs strongly between sister-species. |
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