10.5281/zenodo.17442
https://zenodo.org/records/17442
oai:zenodo.org:17442
Sherratt, Emma
Emma
Sherratt
University of New England, Australia
Castañeda, María del Rosario
María del Rosario
Castañeda
Universidad del Valle, Colombia
Garwood, Russell
Russell
Garwood
The University of Manchester, UK
Mahler, D. Luke
D. Luke
Mahler
University of California, Davis, USA
Sanger, Thomas J.
Thomas J.
Sanger
University of Florida, USA
Herrel, Anthony
Anthony
Herrel
Muséum National d'Histoire Naturelle, France
de Queiroz, Kevin
Kevin
de Queiroz
National Museum of Natural History, Smithsonian Institution, USA
Losos, Jonathan B.
Jonathan B.
Losos
Harvard University, USA
Amber fossils demonstrate deep-time stability of Caribbean lizard communities
Zenodo
2015
Anolis
micro-Computed Tomography
amber
Adaptive radiation
Ecomorph
Hispaniola
2015-05-08
10.1073/pnas.1506516112
Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial Share Alike 4.0 International
This is the dataset for the paper Sherratt et al. 2015 (PNAS, doi: ). Included are the X-ray microtomography (micro-CT) TIFF stacks for the amber encased anole lizard fossils studied. Also included are the morphometric data for the fossil and 100 modern specimens, and the phylogenetic character matrix for the fossils and 181 species (91 morphological characters, 4873 DNA bases).
Abstract
Whether the structure of ecological communities can exhibit stability over macroevolutionary timescales has long been debated. The similarity of independently evolved Anolis lizard communities on environmentally similar Greater Antillean islands supports the notion that community evolution is deterministic. However, a dearth of Caribbean Anolis fossils—only three have been described to date—has precluded direct investigation of the stability of anole communities through time. Here we report on an additional 17 fossil anoles in Dominican amber dating to 15–20 My before the present. Using data collected primarily by X-ray micro computed tomography (X-ray micro-CT), we demonstrate that the main elements of Hispaniolan anole ecomorphological diversity were in place in the Miocene. Phylogenetic analysis yields results consistent with the hypothesis that the ecomorphs that evolved in the Miocene are members of the same ecomorph clades extant today. The primary axes of ecomorphological diversity in the Hispaniolan anole fauna appear to have changed little between the Miocene and the present, providing evidence for the stability of ecological communities over macroevolutionary timescales.