Evolutionary adaptations in the limb morphology of tropidurid lizards in response to sandy environments

Abstract

Different habitat types exert particular challenges to ecological performance, ultimately having a strong influence on the evolution of morphology. Although it is well known that external morphology can evolve under the selective pressure of habitat structure, the evolutionary response of internal morphological traits remains vastly unexplored. Here, we test for morphological divergence between arenicolous and nonarenicolous species in a clade of tropidurid lizards, considering external morphological proportions and limb muscle dimensions. We found that arenicolous species seem to have evolved internal and external morphological adaptations that separate them from other habitat specialists. Moreover, comparative analyses suggested that the traits that differed the most between arenicolous and nonarenicolous lizards might have evolved divergently towards different optima. Additionally, the axis of higher morphological divergence between arenicolous and nonarenicolous species represented an important proportion of the morphological diversity within our sample, indicating that the hypothetical adaptive divergence of internal and external traits has contributed significantly to phenotypic diversity. Our results show that evolutionary associations between morphology and habitat use can be detected on both external body proportions and muscle morphology. Moreover, they highlight the emergent importance of internal anatomical traits in ecomorphological studies, especially when such traits are directly involved in determining functional performance.