Hurricane effects on Neotropical lizards span geographic and phylogenetic scales

Extreme climate events such as droughts, cold snaps, and hurricanes can be powerful agents of natural selection, producing acute selective pressures very different from the everyday pressures acting on organisms. However, it remains unknown whether these infrequent but severe disruptions are quickly erased by quotidian selective forces, or whether they have the potential to durably shape biodiversity patterns across regions and clades. Here, we show that hurricanes have enduring evolutionary impacts on the morphology of anoles, a diverse Neotropical lizard clade. We first demonstrate a transgenerational effect of extreme selection on toepad area for two populations struck by hurricanes in 2017. Given this short-term effect of hurricanes, we then asked whether populations and species that more frequently experienced hurricanes have larger toepads. Using 70 y of historical hurricane data, we demonstrate that, indeed, toepad area positively correlates with hurricane activity for both 12 is...极端气候事件如干旱、寒潮与飓风可作为强有力的自然选择（natural selection）动因，其所施加的强烈选择压力与日常作用于生物体的选择压力截然不同。然而，目前仍不清楚这些虽罕见却极具破坏性的扰动，是会被日常的选择力量迅速抵消，还是有可能持久塑造各区域及演化支（clade）的生物多样性（biodiversity）格局。本研究表明，飓风对安乐蜥（Anolis）——一类丰富多样的新热带区（Neotropical）蜥蜴演化支——的形态特征具有持久的演化影响。我们首先证实了2017年受飓风侵袭的两个种群，其极端选择对趾垫面积（toepad area）存在跨代效应（transgenerational effect）。鉴于飓风的这一短期效应，我们进一步探究了更频繁遭遇飓风的种群与物种是否拥有更大的趾垫面积。通过整合70年的飓风历史数据，我们证实：对于12个类群而言，趾垫面积确实与飓风活动呈正相关。