ArticleNature communications2024
Viviparity imparts a macroevolutionary signature of ecological opportunity in the body size of female Liolaemus lizards.
Article in Nature communications, 2024. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 5 papers.
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Who cites it
5 citing papers in PubMed.
- Clinal Variation in Reproductive Modes and Offspring Body Condition Across a Contact Zone of a Bimodal Viviparous Salamander.Ecology and evolution · 2026Article
- Live birth in lizards: A process-based model for the roles of temperature, behavior, and life-history.Evolution letters · 2026Article
- Testing Relationships between Multiple Regional Features and Biogeographic Processes of Speciation, Extinction, and Dispersal.Systematic biology · 2025Article
- Article
- Opportunity begets opportunity to drive macroevolutionary dynamics of a diverse lizard radiation.Evolution letters · 2024Article
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Authors and funding
6 authors.
Funding
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Abstract
Viviparity evolved ~115 times across squamate reptiles, facilitating the colonization of cold habitats, where oviparous species are scarce or absent. Whether the ecological opportunity furnished by such colonization reconfigures phenotypic diversity and accelerates evolution is unclear. We investigated the association between viviparity and patterns and rates of body size evolution in female Liolaemus lizards, the most species-rich tetrapod genus from temperate regions. Here, we discover that viviparous species evolve ~20% larger optimal body sizes than their oviparous relatives, but exhibit similar rates of body size evolution. Through a causal modeling approach, we find that viviparity indirectly influences body size evolution through shifts in thermal environment. Accordingly, the colonization of cold habitats favors larger body sizes in viviparous species, reconfiguring body size diversity in Liolaemus. The catalyzing influence of viviparity on phenotypic evolution arises because it unlocks access to otherwise inaccessible sources of ecological opportunity, an outcome potentially repeated across the tree of life.
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