Meeting Abstract
Cypriniform fishes comprise over 25% of the world’s freshwater species. These fish exhibit a suite of morphological novelties–including premaxillary protrusion mediated by a sesamoid bone, a muscular palatal organ, and the loss of oral teeth–associated with feeding and occupy a variety of trophic niches. Diverse morphology within the trophic apparatus provides a biological model with which we can investigate the evolution of complex systems. Prey capture is effected by protrusion of the premaxilla. Does developmental integration across hard and soft tissue components of the protrusile mechanism constrain diversity of trophic morphology? We want to investigate the signal of constructional constraint on the pattern of morphological diversity of the A1 division of the adductor mandibula muscle in Cypriniformes. Here we present an experimental framework using modeling and simulation. Our interpretation of anatomical diversity in this element of the trophic apparatus through a functional lens informs a biomechanical model that can be parameterized to support simulation of linkages. Measuring the mechanical stress regime of a simulated linkage provides selection criteria that reflect the constraint of successful sesamoid bone formation. We use a novel extension of the phylomorphospace approach to calibrate these empirical estimates of theoretical morphospace. In this way we are able to test hypotheses of developmental constraint in silico that are less experimentally tractable in situ.
