Habitat use affects morphological diversification in dragon lizards.

Habitat use may lead to variation in diversity among evolutionary lineages because habitats differ in the variety of ways they allow for species to make a living. Here, we show that structural habitats contribute to differential diversification of limb and body form in dragon lizards (Agamidae). Based on phylogenetic analysis and ancestral state reconstructions for 90 species, we find that multiple lineages have independently adopted each of four habitat use types: rock-dwelling, terrestriality, semi-arboreality and arboreality. Given these reconstructions, we fit models of evolution to species' morphological trait values and find that rock-dwelling and arboreality limit diversification relative to terrestriality and semi-arboreality. Models preferred by Akaike information criterion infer slower rates of size and shape evolution in lineages inferred to occupy rocks and trees, and model-averaged rate estimates are slowest for these habitat types. These results suggest that ground-dwelling facilitates ecomorphological differentiation and that use of trees or rocks impedes diversification.

The evolution of agriculture in beetles (Curculionidae: Scolytinae and Platypodinae).

Beetles in the weevil subfamilies Scolytinae and Platypodinae are unusual in that they burrow as adults inside trees for feeding and oviposition. Some of these beetles are known as ambrosia beetles for their obligate mutualisms with asexual fungi--known as ambrosia fungi--that are derived from plant pathogens in the ascomycete group known as the ophiostomatoid fungi. Other beetles in these subfamilies are known as bark beetles and are associated with free-living, pathogenic ophiostomatoid fungi that facilitate beetle attack of phloem of trees with resin defenses. Using DNA sequences from six genes, including both copies of the nuclear gene encoding enolase, we performed a molecular phylogenetic study of bark and ambrosia beetles across these two subfamilies to establish the rate and direction of changes in life histories and their consequences for diversification. The ambrosia beetle habits have evolved repeatedly and are unreversed. The subfamily Platypodinae is derived from within the Scolytinae, near the tribe Scolytini. Comparison of the molecular branch lengths of ambrosia beetles and ambrosia fungi reveals a strong correlation, which a fungal molecular clock suggests spans 60 to 21 million years. Bark beetles have shifted from ancestral association with conifers to angiosperms and back again several times. Each shift to angiosperms is associated with elevated diversity, whereas the reverse shifts to conifers are associated with lowered diversity. The unusual habit of adult burrowing likely facilitated the diversification of these beetle-fungus associations, enabling them to use the biomass-rich resource that trees represent and set the stage for at least one origin of eusociality.