Unravelling the effects of ecology and evolutionary history in the phenotypic convergence of fishes

Understanding the ecological drivers and limitations of adaptive convergence is a fundamental challenge. Here, we explore how adaptive convergence of planktivorous fishes has been influenced by multiple ecological factors, evolutionary history, and chance. Using ecomorphological data for over 1600 marine species, we integrate pattern-based metrics of convergence with evolutionary model fitting to test whether phenotypic similarities among specialist planktivores exceed expectations under null models and whether ecology, evolutionary history, or their combined effects best explain trait evolution. We find that planktivores are significantly more similar in phenotype than expected. Traits with functional relevance for prey detection and capture, such as eye diameter and lower jaw length, are strongly convergent, while general body size and shape are constrained by deep divisions between clades where the effects of evolutionary history are most pronounced. Since not all traits undergo stro..., , , # Unravelling the effects of ecology and evolutionary history in the phenotypic convergence of fishes

[https://doi.org/10.5061/dryad.18931zd69](https://doi.org/10.5061/dryad.18931zd69)

## Description of the data and file structure

Morphometric data measured (in mm) from fish specimens in the FishShapes v1 dataset (Price *et al.* 2019, 2022) were combined with five new morphometric traits measured (in mm) from corresponding specimen images. Ecological data were compiled from the literature and online data repositories.

**Description:** 

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(1) Data folder

This folder contains:

(a) the curated dataset (\"Raw_data_final_Hodge_et.al.csv\") with the five new morphometric measurements (columns C:F, H), the eight morphometric measurements from the FishShapes v1 dataset (columns J:Q), the corresponding metrics of size (columns B, G, I; see also Table S2), and the classified ecological and clade variables (columns R:T) per fish species, as de...,