AI Insight
This study combines genomic analysis and skull shape data to understand how over 6,000 species of spiny-rayed fishes evolved across diverse aquatic habitats. The researchers found that habitat type and feeding ecology independently influence skull shape, with most species clustering around a conserved generalized form called the "Percomorph Pile," while certain lineages like pufferfishes and anglerfishes repeatedly evolved extreme skull shapes. Freshwater species tend to converge on ancestral skull forms, while hard-shelled prey specialists show the greatest diversity, with skull variation partitioned among major groups during the Cretaceous period and within groups during the Cenozoic era.
Why it matters
Understanding how this massive fish radiation diversified provides insights into general principles of adaptive evolution and how ecological opportunity shapes biodiversity. The findings demonstrate how evolutionary rates and ecological pressures interact to generate biological diversity, which is relevant for predicting how species may respond to changing environments and informing conservation priorities.
Understand the Science
⚠️ Preprint – Noch nicht peer-reviewed
Dieser Artikel wurde noch nicht von unabhängigen Experten begutachtet. Die Ergebnisse sind vorläufig und sollten mit Vorsicht interpretiert werden.
Eupercarian spiny-rayed fishes are one of the largest vertebrate radiations, rivaling mammals and occupying nearly every aquatic habitat. We present a densely sampled, time-calibrated phylogenomic framework for Eupercaria, supporting a revised classification, combined with the largest cranial phenomics dataset for fishes. Habitat and trophic ecology make independent, complementary contributions to skull shape. Most species cluster around a conserved generalized architecture, the Percomorph Pile, from which one clade of pufferfishes, anglerfishes, butterflyfishes, and surgeonfishes repeatedly invaded novel morphospace; exceptionally high rates on its deep branches indicate that rapid skull evolution arose early in this clade. Freshwater lineages converge on the ancestral condition, reflecting late arrival into systems occupied by older otophysans, whereas durophages show the greatest disparity and converge on derived forms. Cranial diversity was partitioned among subclades during the Cretaceous and later within them across the Cenozoic, showing that clade-level differences in evolutionary rates and ecological opportunity jointly shaped skull diversification.
Source: Ecological axes of skull diversification in a massive 1 vertebrate radiation