Data from: Shifting Habitats, Morphology and Selective Pressures: Developmental Polyphenism in an Adaptive Radiation of Hawaiian Spiders

Some of the most intriguing examples of adaptive radiation are those in which lineages show parallel or convergent evolution, suggesting deployment of similar genetic or developmental pathways. The current study focuses on an adaptive radiation of Hawaiian “spiny-leg” spiders in which diversification has occurred in concert with repeated convergent evolution leading to a similar set of ecomorphs (recognized on the basis of color) on each island. However, two species on the oldest islands in the archipelago exhibit variability in color, while more derived species on the younger islands display a single ecomorph only. Using transcriptomes, we tested whether variability was associated with the environment or alternatively with development, and then conducted lineage-based tests for selection under varying models and analyses of gene tree versus species tree incongruencies. We provide strong evidence that variability is associated with development rather than the environment. Moreover, a total of 28 loci showed a signature of selection associated with loss of the color-switching phenotype, and 37 loci showed a signature of selection associated with the colonization of a new environment. The results are some of the first to show how developmental polyphenism may translate into repeated evolution of ecomorphs over the course of adaptive radiation.