Data from: The effect of historical legacy on adaptation: do closely related species respond to the environment in the same way?

The many documented examples of parallel and convergent evolution in
similar environments are strong evidence for the role of natural selection
in the evolution of trait variation. However, species may respond to
selection in different ways; idiosyncrasies of their evolutionary history
may affect how different species respond to the same selective pressure.
To determine whether evolutionary history affects trait-environment
associations in a recently diverged lineage, we investigated
within-species trait-environment associations in the white proteas, a
closely related monophyletic group. We first used MANOVAs to determine the
relative importance of shared response to selection, evolutionary history,
and unique responses to selection on trait variation. We found that on
average, similar associations to the environment across species explained
trait variation, but that the species had different mean trait values. We
also detected species-specific associations of traits to the environmental
gradients. To identify the traits associated uniquely to the environment
we used a structural equation model. Our analysis showed that the species
differed in how their traits were associated with each of the
environmental variables. Further, in the cases of two root traits (root
mass and root length:mass ratio), two species differed in the direction of
their associations (e.g. populations in one species had heavier roots in
warmer areas, and populations in the other species had lighter roots in
warmer areas). Our study shows that even in a closely related group of
species, evolutionary history may have an effect on both the size and
direction of adaptations to the environment.