Data from: Periodic environmental disturbance drives repeated ecomorphological diversification in an adaptive radiation of Antarctic fishes

The ecological theory of adaptive radiation has profoundly shaped our
conceptualization of the rules that govern diversification. However, while
many radiations follow classic early burst patterns of diversification as
they fill ecological space, the longer-term fates of these radiations
depend on many factors, such as climatic stability. In systems with
periodic disturbances, species-rich clades can contain nested adaptive
radiations of subclades with their own distinct diversification histories,
and how adaptive radiation theory applies in these cases is less clear.
Here, we investigated patterns of ecological and phenotypic
diversification within two iterative adaptive radiations of
cryonotothenioid fishes in Antarctica’s Southern Ocean: crocodile
icefishes and notoperches. For both clades, we observe evidence of
repeated diversification into disparate regions of trait space between
closely related taxa and into overlapping regions of trait space between
distantly related taxa. We additionally find little evidence that patterns
of ecological divergence are correlated with evolution of morphological
disparity, suggesting that these axes of divergence may not be tightly
linked. Finally, we reveal evidence of repeated convergence in sympatry
that suggests niche complementarity. These findings reflect the dynamic
history of Antarctic marine habitats, and may guide hypotheses of
diversification dynamics in environments characterized by periodic
disturbance.