Data from: Testing for differences in rates of speciation, extinction, and morphological evolution in four tribes of cichlids endemic to Lake Tanganyika, East Africa

Patterns of morphological disparity yield important insight into the
causes of diversification and adaptive radiation in East African cichlids.
However, comparisons of cichlid disparity have often failed to consider
the effects that differing clade ages or stochasticity may have on
disparity before making interpretations. Here, a model of branching
morphological evolution allows assessment of the relative contributions of
differing turnover and morphological change rates, clade ages, and
stochastic variation to the observed patterns of disparity in four endemic
tribes of Lake Tanganyika cichlids. Simulations compare the likelihood of
generating the observed disparity of the four tribes using 200 parameter
combinations and four model conditioning variations, which allows
inference of evolutionary rate differences among clades. The model is
generally robust to model conditioning, the approach to data analysis, and
model assumptions. Disparity differences among the first three cichlid
tribes, Ectodini, Lamprologini, and Tropheini, can be explained entirely
by stochasticity and age, whereas the fourth tribe, Cyprichromini, has
likely experienced lower rates of turnover and morphological change. This
rate difference is likely related to the low dietary diversity of the
Cyprichromini. These results highlight the importance of considering both
clade age and stochastic variation when interpreting morphological
diversity and evolutionary processes.