Data from: Thermal niche evolution across replicated Anolis lizard adaptive radiations

Elucidating how ecological and evolutionary mechanisms interact to produce
and maintain biodiversity is a fundamental problem in evolutionary
ecology. We investigate this issue by focusing on how physiological
evolution affects performance and species coexistence along the thermal
niche axis in replicated radiations of Anolis lizards, groups best known
for resource partitioning based on morphological divergence. We find
repeated divergence in thermal physiology within these radiations, and
that this divergence significantly affects performance within natural
thermal environments. Morphologically similar species that co-occur
invariably differ in their thermal physiology, providing evidence that
physiological divergence facilitates species co-existence within anole
communities. Despite repeated divergence in traits of demonstrable
ecological importance, phylogenetic comparative analyses indicate that
physiological traits have evolved more slowly than key morphological
traits related to the structural niche. Phylogenetic analyses also reveal
that physiological divergence is correlated with divergence in broad-scale
habitat climatic features commonly used to estimate thermal niche
evolution, but that the latter incompletely predicts variation in the
former. We provide comprehensive evidence for repeated adaptive evolution
of physiological divergence within Anolis adaptive radiations, including
the complementary roles of physiological and morphological divergence in
promoting community-level diversity. We recommend greater integration of
performance-based traits into analyses of climatic niche evolution, as
they facilitate a more complete understanding of the phenotypic and
ecological consequences of climatic divergence.