Data from: Diversification across biomes in a continental lizard radiation

Ecological opportunity is a powerful driver of evolutionary
diversification, and predicts rapid lineage and phenotypic diversification
following colonisation of competitor-free habitats. Alternatively,
topographic or environmental heterogeneity could be key to generating and
sustaining diversity. We explore these hypotheses in a widespread lineage
of Australian lizards: the Gehyra variegata group. This clade occurs
across two biomes: the Australian monsoonal tropics (AMT), where it
overlaps a separate, larger bodied clade of Gehyra and is largely
restricted to rocks; and in the larger Australian arid zone (AAZ) where it
has no congeners and occupies trees and rocks. New phylogenomic data and
coalescent analyses of AAZ taxa resolve lineages and their relationships
and reveal high diversity in the western AAZ (Pilbara region). The AMT and
AAZ radiations represent separate radiations with no difference in
speciation rates. Most taxa occur on rocks, with small geographic ranges
relative to widespread generalist taxa across the vast central AAZ.
Rock-dwelling and generalist taxa differ morphologically, but only the
lineage-poor central AAZ taxa have accelerated evolution. This accords
with increasing evidence that lineage and morphological diversity are
poorly correlated, and suggests environmental heterogeneity and refugial
dynamics have been more important than ecological release in elevating
lineage diversity.