Meeting Abstract
The evolution of behavioral and ecological specialization can have marked effects of the tempo and mode of phenotypic evolution. Head‐first burrowing has been shown to exert powerful selective pressures on the head and body shapes of many vertebrate and invertebrate taxa. In wrasses (Labridae: Percomorpha), burrowing behaviors have evolved multiple times independently, and are commonly used in foraging and predator avoidance behaviors. While recent studies have examined the kinematics and body shape morphology associated with this behavior, no study to‐date has examined the macroevolutionary implications of burrowing on patterns of phenotypic diversification in this clade. Here, we use three‐dimensional geometric morphometrics and phylogenetic comparative methods to study the evolution of neurocranium shape in fossorial wrasses and their relatives. We test for skull shape differences between burrowing and non‐burrowing wrasses and evaluate hypotheses of shape convergence among the burrowing wrasses. We also quantify rates of skull shape evolution between burrowing and non‐burrowing wrasses to test for whether burrowing constrains or accelerates rates of skull shape evolution in this clade. We find that burrowing wrasses and non‐burrowing wrasses exhibit similar degrees of morphological disparity and exhibit indistinguishable rates of skull shape evolution. These results suggest that patterns of skull shape diversification in wrasses are not constrained by head-first burrowing and that several phenotypes are capable of this behavior.
