Feeding ecology and allometry underlie distinct axes of mandible and leg evolution in tropical termites

This repository contains all datasets, morphometric data, phylogenetic information, and R scripts required to reproduce the analyses presented in this study on morphological evolution in termites. It integrates geometric morphometric data for mandibles and legs with a species-level phylogeny to investigate patterns of shape and size variation across feeding groups. The repository supports a complete analytical workflow, including phylogenetic comparative analyses (PGLS), ancestral state reconstruction of discrete (diet) and continuous (size) traits, and model-based inference of evolutionary dynamics. Specifically, it includes analyses of evolutionary mode (e.g., Brownian motion, Ornstein–Uhlenbeck, and multi-optima models) and tempo (rate variation across feeding regimes) using multivariate approaches. All scripts are fully annotated and organized to ensure reproducibility of results and figures presented in the manuscript. Repository Structure 1. Script MorphologicalEvolution_Termites.R Main analysis script integrating all analytical components of the study. The script is fully annotated and organized into sequential sections corresponding to the workflow described in the manuscript: Data preparation and preprocessing; Morphological analyses (shape and size); Phylogenetic comparative analyses (PGLS); Ancestral state reconstruction; Evolutionary mode analyses; Evolutionary tempo analyses; Visualization and figure generation; 2. Phylogeny Folder: phylogeny Contains the termite species phylogenetic tree used in all analyses. The MCC (maximum clade credibility) tree was derived from 10,000 polytomy-resolved trees to incorporate phylogenetic uncertainty. File: phylogeny_MCC.tree (Newick format). 3. Datasets Folder: datasets colony_df.csv – Individual specimen-level dataset including: Collection metadata; Ecological classification; Colony information; mandibles.TPS, foreleg.TPS, hindleg.TPS – Landmark-based geometric morphometric datasets in TPS format, containing two-dimensional Cartesian coordinates for anatomical landmarks. These files are used as input for Procrustes alignment and subsequent multivariate shape analyses. mandibles.TPS: Landmark configurations for mandible morphology, including both left and right mandibles for each specimen. foreleg.TPS: Landmark configurations for foreleg elements, including the fore femur and fore tibia. hindleg.TPS: Landmark configurations for hindleg elements, including the hind femur and hind tibia.