The adaptive radiation of lichen-forming Teloschistaceae is associated with sunscreening pigments and a bark-to-rock substrate shift
Abstract
Adaptive radiations play key roles in the generation of biodiversity and biological novelty, and therefore understanding the factors that drive them remains one of the most important challenges of evolutionary biology. Although both intrinsic innovations and extrinsic ecological opportunities contribute to diversification bursts, few studies have looked at the synergistic effect of such factors. Here we investigate the Teloschistales (Ascomycota), a group of >1,000 lichenized species with variation in species richness and phenotypic traits that hinted at a potential adaptive radiation. We found evidence for a dramatic increase in diversification rate for one of four families within this order--Teloschistaceae--which occurred ∼ 100 Mya (Late Cretaceous) and was associated with a switch from bark to rock and from shady to sun-exposed habitats. This adaptation to sunny habitats is likely to have been enabled by a contemporaneous key novel phenotypic innovation: the production in both vegetative structure (thallus) and fruiting body (apothecia) of anthraquinones, secondary metabolites known to protect against UV light. We found that the two ecological factors (sun exposure and rock substrate) and the phenotypic innovation (anthraqu...Continue Reading
References
RAxML-VI-HPC: maximum likelihood-based phylogenetic analyses with thousands of taxa and mixed models
The age and diversification of terrestrial New World ecosystems through Cretaceous and Cenozoic time
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