Data for: Are feeding modes concealing morphofunctional diversity? The case of the New World Parrotfishes

In functional ecology, morphology is expected to reflect function, however, occasional decoupling of these two can be found. We did not find a relationship between feeding functional morphology and feeding modes of the American parrotfishes of the genera Scarus and Sparisoma. We explore some possible morpho-functional reasons for this phenomenon and reconsider the functional diversity within the scrapers. A phylogenetic tree including 50 species of parrotfishes, based on 12 genes, was reconstructed over which all analyses were performed. We found that although all Scarus species feed only by scraping, they are morpho-functionally more diverse compared to Sparisoma species, which have three different feeding modes (scraping, browsing and excavating) but appear to be morpho-functionally constrained. We quantified and compared the morpho-functional diversity within each genus using the disparity of the oral jaw feeding mechanics. An ecological convergence on scraping between all Scarus spe...