Data from: Punctuated versus gradual shifts in the multivariate evolutionary process: a test with paired radiations of scincid lizards

As lineages become separated in time, they are expected to accumulate
mutational (or developmental-genetic) differences that influence the
macroevolutionary trajectories of those lineages even under similar
environmental conditions. Here, we compare the dynamics of phenotypic
evolution in radiations of scincid lizards from Australia and Madagascar
that are separated by more than 100 million years of independent evolution
and show rampant phenotypic parallelism. We collected linear measurements
of the skull, limbs, and limb girdles from micro-CT scans of 94 Australian
and 29 Malagasy species. Using multivariate comparative methods, we tested
whether the underlying evolutionary covariance structure for this
superficial parallelism was conserved and whether these patterns were
consistent across distinct functional modules. Malagasy and most
Australian skinks have similar covariance matrices for skull evolution.
Results are ambiguous for limbs and limb girdles, as some trait subsets
support different evolutionary processes and for other subsets, a shared
covariance matrix could not be rejected. However, across most trait sets,
the extremely speciose Australian genus Ctenotus exhibits a radically
different covariance structure from all other lizards in these groups,
including several closely related genera. The shift in Ctenotus
demonstrates that the architecture of phenotypic evolutionary correlation
can change at relatively shallow timescales and may explain the unique
position of this clade in morphospace relative to other scincid lizards
from both geographic regions. More generally, our results demonstrate that
the multivariate evolutionary process can change dramatically in a
relatively short period of time.