Biology subjects

Sinervo, B.

Publications and source records attributed to Sinervo, B..

4 recordsLinked to original sources

bioRxiv2023

Color polymorphism and conspicuousness do not increase speciation rates in Lacertids

Conspicuous body colours and colour polymorphism have been hypothesized to increase rates of speciation. Conspicuous colours are evolutionary labile, and often involved in intraspecific sexual signalling and thus may provide a raw material from which reproductive isolation can easily evolve, while polymorphism could favour rapid evolution of new lineages through morphic speciation. Here, we investigated the influence of the presence/absence of conspicuous colourations, and of colour polymorphism on the speciation of Lacertids. We used several state-dependent diversification models, and showed that, regardless of the methods, conspicuous colourations and colour polymorphism were not related to species speciation. While the lack of correlation between conspicuous colourations and speciation rates is in line with most of the literature testing this hypothesis, the results for colour polymorphism contradict previous studies, and question the generality of the morphic speciation hypothesis.

evolutionary biology↗

bioRxiv2022

The triadic structure of personality space in the house mouse resembles that of species with known personality badges; suggesting reciprocal hierarchies are an evolutionary motif with mixed strategies being more common

Differences in animal personalities are generally hard to measure - even in an animal as common as the house mouse. Yet, in some rare cases, nature has provided us with clear visual cues as to the nature of a specific individual. These so-called badges are the case for the side botched lizard, often referred to as the rock-paper-scissor lizard. Here, we show that mice have behavioral archetypes that are similar to the triadic social dynamics of the lizards. We find analogs in territoriality, aggressiveness, and pro-social behavior linking ultra-dominant, dominant, and subordinate mice to the lizards orange, blue, and yellow morphs accordingly. Yet, unlike the lizards, most mice in the study displayed mixed strategies rather than fall into clear behavioral archetypes. In such a case, it makes less sense to have distinct visual cues to distinguish between personalities. The result implies that, although visual distinctions are infrequent in nature, having multiple behavioral archetypes might serve as an evolutionary motif. In addition, we find that mammals, like mice, might have circular hierarchies, similar to the lizards, where no single behavioral strategy outweighs others.

animal behavior and cognition↗

bioRxiv2017

Natural selection on plasticity of thermal traits in a highly seasonal environment

This preprint has been reviewed and recommended by Peer Community In Evolutionary Biology (http://dx.doi.org/10.24072/pci.evolbiol.100048). For ectothermic species with broad geographical distributions, latitudinal/altitudinal variation in environmental temperatures (averages and extremes) are expected to shape the evolution of physiological tolerances and the acclimation capacity (i.e., degree of phenotypic plasticity) of natural populations. This can create geographical gradients of selection in which environments with greater thermal variability (e.g., seasonality) tend to favour individuals that maximize performance across a broader range of temperatures compared to more stable environments. Although thermal acclimation capacity plays a fundamental role in this context, it is unknown whether natural selection targets this trait in natural populations. Here we addressed such an important gap in our knowledge by measuring survival, through mark recapture integrated into an information-theoretic approach, as a function of the plasticity of critical thermal limits for activity, behavioural thermal preference and the thermal sensitivity of metabolism in the northernmost population of the four-eyed frog Pleurodema thaul. Overall, our results indicate that thermal acclimation in this population is not being targeted by directional selection, although there might be signals of selection on individual traits. According to the most supported models, survival decreased in individuals with less tolerance to cold when cold-acclimated (probably because daily low extremes are frequent during the cooler periods of the year) and increased with body size. However, in both cases, the directional selection estimates were non-significant.

evolutionary biology↗

bioRxiv2017

Towards a Global Framework for Estimating Acclimation and Thermal Breadth that Predicts Risk from Climate Change

Thermal breadth, the range of body temperatures over which organisms perform well, and thermal acclimation, the ability to alter optimal performance temperature and critical thermal maximum or minimum with changing temperatures, reflect the capacity of organisms to respond to temperature variability and are thus crucial traits for coping with climate change. Although there are theoretical frameworks for predicting thermal breadths and acclimation, the predictions of these models have not been tested across taxa, latitudes, body sizes, traits, habitats, and methodological factors. Here, we address this knowledge gap using simulation modeling and empirical analyses of >2,000 acclimation strengths from >500 species using four datasets of ectotherms. After accounting for important statistical interactions, covariates, and experimental artifacts, we reveal that i) acclimation rate scales positively with body size contributing to a negative association between body size and thermal breadth across species and ii) acclimation capacity increases with body size, seasonality, and latitude (to mid-latitudinal regions) and is regularly underestimated for most organisms. Contrary to suggestions that plasticity theory and empirical work on thermal acclimation are incongruent, these findings are consistent with theory on phenotypic plasticity. We further validated our framework by demonstrating that it could predict global extinction risk to amphibian biodiversity from climate change.

ecology↗