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Flowing Round the World: Water Snakes (Natricidae) Show Habitat-Related Adaptive Radiation After Dispersal to the New World

Vicky Pascolutti, Kevin Arbuckle Orcid Logo

Diversity, Volume: 17, Issue: 7, Start page: 449

Swansea University Authors: Vicky Pascolutti, Kevin Arbuckle Orcid Logo

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DOI (Published version): 10.3390/d17070449

Abstract

Adaptive radiations are characterized by increases in rates of lineage and trait evolution, typically due to the opening of new ecological opportunities such as may follow from dispersal to a new region or the evolution of a trait that allows exploitation of new niches. This results in clades that h...

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Published in: Diversity
ISSN: 1424-2818
Published: MDPI AG 2025
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URI: https://cronfa.swan.ac.uk/Record/cronfa69810
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last_indexed 2025-07-22T05:04:08Z
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spelling 2025-07-21T10:37:27.3412320 v2 69810 2025-06-25 Flowing Round the World: Water Snakes (Natricidae) Show Habitat-Related Adaptive Radiation After Dispersal to the New World 5dff486067b571a33ba25b4a6fd5d9a2 Vicky Pascolutti Vicky Pascolutti true false d1775d20b12e430869cc7be5d7d4a27e 0000-0002-9171-5874 Kevin Arbuckle Kevin Arbuckle true false 2025-06-25 Adaptive radiations are characterized by increases in rates of lineage and trait evolution, typically due to the opening of new ecological opportunities such as may follow from dispersal to a new region or the evolution of a trait that allows exploitation of new niches. This results in clades that have accumulated unusually high biological diversity within a relatively short evolutionary timespan and hence the phenomenon has attracted longstanding interest amongst evolutionary biologists. Natricidae is a family of snakes with a primarily Old World distribution but which have colonized the New World on a single occasion. This dispersal event coincides with an increased speciation rate that has led to a species-rich New World clade. Herein, we take a phylogenetic comparative approach to investigate a likely adaptive radiation of New World natricids. We first confirmed previously reported findings of a single origin (providing new ecological opportunity) coinciding with a burst of lineage diversification. We then estimate the rates of evolution for three ecologically important traits (body size and broad categories of diet and habitat) separately for New World and Old World natricids. Of these three traits, our results provide evidence that only transition rates between terrestrial and (semi-)aquatic habitats are higher in the New World clade. Taken together, this supports a scenario of an adaptive radiation in natricids primarily associated with differentiation by habitat as the clade spread across the New World following its arrival there. Considering other adaptive radiations alongside our evidence for Natricidae, we propose the hypothesis that there is a common distinction between spatially constrained ‘island’ adaptive radiations (which often diverge along trophic axes) and continental adaptive radiations, which diverge as the clade spreads across a larger spatial scale and adapts to different habitats. Journal Article Diversity 17 7 449 MDPI AG 1424-2818 trait evolution; macroevolutionary diversification; speciation rates; historical biogeography; ecological opportunity; continental radiation 24 6 2025 2025-06-24 10.3390/d17070449 COLLEGE NANME COLLEGE CODE Swansea University Other This research received no external funding. 2025-07-21T10:37:27.3412320 2025-06-25T09:54:56.2763373 Faculty of Science and Engineering School of Biosciences, Geography and Physics - Biosciences Vicky Pascolutti 1 Kevin Arbuckle 0000-0002-9171-5874 2 69810__34576__211470d7eb72404988e0c59e9b148449.pdf flowing round the world.pdf 2025-06-25T10:01:44.8257198 Output 2226532 application/pdf Version of Record true © 2025 by the authors. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license. true eng https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
title Flowing Round the World: Water Snakes (Natricidae) Show Habitat-Related Adaptive Radiation After Dispersal to the New World
spellingShingle Flowing Round the World: Water Snakes (Natricidae) Show Habitat-Related Adaptive Radiation After Dispersal to the New World
Vicky Pascolutti
Kevin Arbuckle
title_short Flowing Round the World: Water Snakes (Natricidae) Show Habitat-Related Adaptive Radiation After Dispersal to the New World
title_full Flowing Round the World: Water Snakes (Natricidae) Show Habitat-Related Adaptive Radiation After Dispersal to the New World
title_fullStr Flowing Round the World: Water Snakes (Natricidae) Show Habitat-Related Adaptive Radiation After Dispersal to the New World
title_full_unstemmed Flowing Round the World: Water Snakes (Natricidae) Show Habitat-Related Adaptive Radiation After Dispersal to the New World
title_sort Flowing Round the World: Water Snakes (Natricidae) Show Habitat-Related Adaptive Radiation After Dispersal to the New World
author_id_str_mv 5dff486067b571a33ba25b4a6fd5d9a2
d1775d20b12e430869cc7be5d7d4a27e
author_id_fullname_str_mv 5dff486067b571a33ba25b4a6fd5d9a2_***_Vicky Pascolutti
d1775d20b12e430869cc7be5d7d4a27e_***_Kevin Arbuckle
author Vicky Pascolutti
Kevin Arbuckle
author2 Vicky Pascolutti
Kevin Arbuckle
format Journal article
container_title Diversity
container_volume 17
container_issue 7
container_start_page 449
publishDate 2025
institution Swansea University
issn 1424-2818
doi_str_mv 10.3390/d17070449
publisher MDPI AG
college_str Faculty of Science and Engineering
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hierarchy_top_id facultyofscienceandengineering
hierarchy_top_title Faculty of Science and Engineering
hierarchy_parent_id facultyofscienceandengineering
hierarchy_parent_title Faculty of Science and Engineering
department_str School of Biosciences, Geography and Physics - Biosciences{{{_:::_}}}Faculty of Science and Engineering{{{_:::_}}}School of Biosciences, Geography and Physics - Biosciences
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description Adaptive radiations are characterized by increases in rates of lineage and trait evolution, typically due to the opening of new ecological opportunities such as may follow from dispersal to a new region or the evolution of a trait that allows exploitation of new niches. This results in clades that have accumulated unusually high biological diversity within a relatively short evolutionary timespan and hence the phenomenon has attracted longstanding interest amongst evolutionary biologists. Natricidae is a family of snakes with a primarily Old World distribution but which have colonized the New World on a single occasion. This dispersal event coincides with an increased speciation rate that has led to a species-rich New World clade. Herein, we take a phylogenetic comparative approach to investigate a likely adaptive radiation of New World natricids. We first confirmed previously reported findings of a single origin (providing new ecological opportunity) coinciding with a burst of lineage diversification. We then estimate the rates of evolution for three ecologically important traits (body size and broad categories of diet and habitat) separately for New World and Old World natricids. Of these three traits, our results provide evidence that only transition rates between terrestrial and (semi-)aquatic habitats are higher in the New World clade. Taken together, this supports a scenario of an adaptive radiation in natricids primarily associated with differentiation by habitat as the clade spread across the New World following its arrival there. Considering other adaptive radiations alongside our evidence for Natricidae, we propose the hypothesis that there is a common distinction between spatially constrained ‘island’ adaptive radiations (which often diverge along trophic axes) and continental adaptive radiations, which diverge as the clade spreads across a larger spatial scale and adapts to different habitats.
published_date 2025-06-24T05:29:09Z
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