ArticleProceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America2019
Ecomorphological diversification in squamates from conserved pattern of cranial integration.
Article in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 2019. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. An erratum has been issued. Cited by 66 papers.
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66 citing papers in PubMed, 174 citations in OpenAlex.
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- Evolutionary Rate Incongruences in Squamates Reveal Contrasting Patterns of Evolutionary Novelties and Innovation.Systematic biology · 2026Article
- Structural Equation Modeling Reveals How Allometry Shapes Integration in Avian Cranial Evolution.Integrative and comparative biology · 2026Article
- Revisiting the Palimpsest: Exploring the Interaction of the Variance and Structure of Developmental Determinants of Phenotypic Covariance.Integrative and comparative biology · 2026Article
- Intraspecific Variation in Life Cycle Impacts the Morphology of Alpine Newts.Integrative and comparative biology · 2026Article
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- Cranial modularity drives phenotypic diversification and adaptive radiation of Antarctic icefishes.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2025Article
- Developmental and Functional Interactions Structure Patterns of Variational Modularity in the Lunar Wrasse Skull.Integrative and comparative biology · 2025Article
- Lateral jaw motion in fish expands the functional repertoire of vertebrates and underpins the success of a dominant herbivore lineage.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2025Article
- Evolution of Pineal Nonvisual Opsins in Lizards and the Tuatara and Identification of Lepidopsin: A New Opsin Gene.Genome biology and evolution · 2025Article
- Assessing the application of landmark-free morphometrics to macroevolutionary analyses.BMC ecology and evolution · 2025Article
- Habitat openness and squamate color evolution over deep time.Nature communications · 2025Article
- The SmARTR pipeline: A modular workflow for the cinematic rendering of 3D scientific imaging data.iScience · 2024Article
- Ecological drivers of jaw morphological evolution in lepidosaurs.Proceedings. Biological sciences · 2024Article
- Evolutionary Links Between Skull Shape and Body Size Suggest Allometric Forces and Selection at Work in a Generalist Group of Lizards.Ecology and evolution · 2024Article
- Compound osteoderms preserved in amber reveal the oldest known skink.Scientific reports · 2024Article
- Dynamic evolutionary interplay between ontogenetic skull patterning and whole-head integration.Nature ecology & evolution · 2024Article
6 more citing papers are in PubMed but not listed here.
Corrections and comments
- Erratum issued
Authors and funding
7 authors at 3 institutions in 3 countries.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Factors intrinsic and extrinsic to organisms dictate the course of morphological evolution but are seldom considered together in comparative analyses. Among vertebrates, squamates (lizards and snakes) exhibit remarkable morphological and developmental variations that parallel their incredible ecological spectrum. However, this exceptional diversity also makes systematic quantification and analysis of their morphological evolution challenging. We present a squamate-wide, high-density morphometric analysis of the skull across 181 modern and extinct species to identify the primary drivers of their cranial evolution within a unified, quantitative framework. Diet and habitat preferences, but not reproductive mode, are major influences on skull-shape evolution across squamates, with fossorial and aquatic taxa exhibiting convergent and rapid changes in skull shape. In lizards, diet is associated with the shape of the rostrum, reflecting its use in grasping prey, whereas snakes show a correlation between diet and the shape of posterior skull bones important for gape widening. Similarly, we observe the highest rates of evolution and greatest disparity in regions associated with jaw musculature in lizards, whereas those forming the jaw articulation evolve faster in snakes. In addition, high-resolution ancestral cranial reconstructions from these data support a terrestrial, nonfossorial origin for snakes. Despite their disparate evolutionary trends, lizards and snakes unexpectedly share a common pattern of trait integration, with the highest correlations in the occiput, jaw articulation, and palate. We thus demonstrate that highly diverse phenotypes, exemplified by lizards and snakes, can and do arise from differential selection acting on conserved patterns of phenotypic integration.
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