Adaptive or non-adaptive? Cranial evolution in a radiation of miniaturized day geckos

Abstract

Lygodactylus geckos represent a well-documented radiation of miniaturized lizards with diverse life-history traits that are widely distributed in Africa, Madagascar, and South America. The group has diversified into numerous species with high levels of morphological similarity. The evolutionary processes underlying such diversification remain enigmatic, because species live in different ecological biomes, ecoregions and microhabitats, while suggesting strikingly high levels of homoplasy. To underscore this evolutionary pattern, here we explore the shape variation of skull elements (i.e., cranium, jaw and inner ear) using 3D geometric morphometrics and phylogenetic comparative methods on computed tomography scans (CT-scan) of a sample encompassing almost all recognized taxa within Lygodactylus. The results of this work show that skull and inner ear shape variation is low (i.e., there is high overlapping on the morphospace) across geographic regions, macrohabitats and lifestyles, implying extensive homoplasy. Furthermore, we also found a strong influence of allometry shaping cranial variation both at intra and interspecific levels, suggesting a major constraint underlying skull architecture, probably as a consequence of its miniaturization. The remaining variation that is not allometric is independent of phylogeny and ecological adaptation and can probably be interpreted as the result of intrinsic developmental plasticity. This, in turn, supports the interpretation that speciation in this group is largely concordant with a non-adaptive hypothesis, which results mainly from vicariant processes.