Parallel and non-parallel phenotypic responses to environmental variation across Lesser Antillean anoles

Abstract

Species whose ranges encompass substantial environmental variation should experience heterogeneous selection, potentially resulting in local adaptation. Repeated covariation between phenotype and environment across ecologically similar species inhabiting similar environments provides strong evidence for adaptation. Lesser Antillean anoles present an excellent system in which to study repeated local adaptation because most species are widespread generalists occurring throughout environmentally heterogenous island landscapes. We leveraged this natural replication to test the hypothesis that intraspecific variation in phenotype (coloration and morphology) is consistently associated with environment across 9 species of bimaculatus series anoles. We measured dorsal coloration from 173 individuals from 6 species and 16 morphological traits from 883 individuals from 9 species, spanning their island ranges. We identified striking, but incomplete, parallelism in dorsal coloration associated with annual precipitation in our study species. By contrast, we observed significant patterns of morphological isolation-by-environment in only 2 species and no signal of parallel morphological evolution. Collectively, our results reveal strong divergent natural selection by environment on dorsal coloration but not morphology.

Keywords: Anolis; Caribbean; climatic variation; isolation by environment; parallel evolution; phenotypic evolution.