Competition and geography underlie speciation and morphological evolution in Indo-Australasian monitor lizards

How biotic and abiotic factors act together to shape biological diversity is a major question in evolutionary biology. The recent availability of large datasets and development of new methodological approaches provide new tools to evaluate the predicted effects of ecological interactions and geography on lineage diversification and phenotypic evolution. Here, we use a near complete phylogenomic-scale phylogeny and a comprehensive morphological dataset comprising more than a thousand specimens to assess the role of biotic and abiotic processes in the diversification of monitor lizards (Varanidae). This charismatic group of lizards shows striking variation in species richness among its clades and multiple instances of endemic radiation in Indo-Australasia (i.e., the Indo-Australian Archipelago and Australia), one of Earth’s most biogeographically complex regions. We found heterogeneity in diversification dynamics across the family. Idiosyncratic biotic and geographic conditions appear to ...

生物因素与非生物因素如何共同作用以塑造生物多样性，是进化生物学领域的核心问题之一。近年来，大型数据集的可获取性以及新方法学手段的发展，为评估生态相互作用与地理因素对谱系分化及表型进化的预测效应提供了新工具。在此，我们利用近乎完整的系统基因组尺度系统发育树，以及涵盖逾千份标本的综合形态学数据集，评估生物与非生物过程在巨蜥科（Varanidae）分化中的作用。这一极具魅力的蜥蜴类群，其各分支间物种丰富度存在显著差异，且在印澳区（即印澳群岛与澳大利亚）——地球生物地理最复杂的区域之一——发生了多次特有辐射事件。我们发现该科的分化动态存在异质性。独特的生物与地理条件似乎……