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Citation for Study 19313

About Citation title: "Defensive traits exhibit an evolutionary trade-off and drive diversification in ants".
About Study name: "Defensive traits exhibit an evolutionary trade-off and drive diversification in ants".
About This study is part of submission 19313 (Status: Published).

Citation

Blanchard B.D., & Moreau C.S. 2016. Defensive traits exhibit an evolutionary trade-off and drive diversification in ants. Evolution, .

Authors

  • Blanchard B.D. (submitter)
  • Moreau C.S. Phone 312-665-7743

Abstract

Evolutionary biologists have long predicted that evolutionary trade-offs among traits should constrain morphological divergence and species diversification. However, this prediction has yet to be tested in a broad evolutionary context in many diverse clades, including ants. Here, we reconstruct an expanded ant phylogeny representing 82% of ant genera, compile a new family-wide trait database, and conduct various trait-based analyses to show that defensive traits in ants do exhibit an evolutionary trade-off. In particular, the use of a functional sting negatively correlates with a suite of other defensive traits including spines, large eye size, and large colony size. Furthermore, we find that several of the defensive traits that trade off with a sting are also positively correlated with each other and drive increased diversification, further suggesting that these traits form a defensive suite. Our results support the hypothesis that trade-offs in defensive traits significantly constrain trait evolution and influence species diversification in ants.

Keywords

Evolutionary trade-off, trait-based diversification, defense, ancestral state reconstruction, Formicidae

External links

About this resource

  • Canonical resource URI: http://purl.org/phylo/treebase/phylows/study/TB2:S19313
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