Mosaic evolution underlies feliform morphological disparity

Constraint is a fundamental concept in evolutionary theory. Morphology and ecology both are limited by functional, historical, and developmental factors to a subset of the theoretical range species could occupy. Cat-like carnivorans (Feliformia) offer a unique opportunity to investigate phenotypic constraint, as several feliform clades are purported to be limited to generalized ecomorphological roles, while others possessing extremely specialized durophagous (bone-crushing) and sabertooth morphology. We investigated the evolutionary history of feliforms by considering their phylogeny, morphological disparity and rates of evolution. We recover results that show a mosaic pattern exists in the degree of morphological disparity per anatomical region per clade and ecology. Non-hypercarnivores, such as viverrids (civets and genets), Malagasy euplerids and lophocyonids (extinct hypocarnivores) have the greatest dental disparity, while hypercarnivores (felids, nimravids, many hyaenids) have the..., Morphological information was taken from observation and measurment of museum curated fossil and modern skeletal specimens and published datsets from scientifc literature. This was combined with molecular sequence data (nuclear and mitochondrial) for extant and recently extinct taxa downloaded form GenBank. The best partition and evolutionary models for phylogenetic analysis was determined using Stetting Stone analysis for the morphological data, while PartitionFinder 2 for the moecluar data. From these data, a total-evidence Bayesian phylogentic analysis was run in Beast. Rates of evolution and morphological disparity were then calculated from the morphological character dataset in the R Claddis package across a sample of the posterior trees in the phylogentic analysis, as well as the MCC tree. , , # Mosaic evolution underlies feliform morphological disparity

[https://doi.org/10.5061/dryad.pk0p2ngv7](https://doi.org/10.5061/dryad.pk0p2ngv7)

## Description of the data and file structure

This research is of two parts. The first performed a total-evidence (molecular, e.g. DNA, and morphology) phylogenetic analysis to create a family tree of relationships amongst the studies species of interest. The second part used the morphological data (description of anatomy) to assess disparity (range of variation) and rates of evolution for the species of interest. Data is sequentially organized from collection to analysis.

## Sharing/Access information

Data was derived from the following sources:

* Reposited molecular data in GenBank, accession numbers found in Supplemental Data 1.
* Museum collection specimens via direct observation/measurement and published literature as listed in Supplemental Data 3.

## Code/Software

The phylogenetic analysis was run in BEAST2 while all other ana...