title: Amber fossils demonstrate deep-time stability of Caribbean lizard communities.
abstract: Whether the structure of ecological communities can exhibit stability over macroevolutionary timescales has long been debated. The similarity of independently evolved Anolis lizard communities on environmentally similar Greater Antillean islands supports the notion that community evolution is deterministic. However, a dearth of Caribbean Anolis fossils--only three have been described to date--has precluded direct investigation of the stability of anole communities through time. Here we report on an additional 17 fossil anoles in Dominican amber dating to 15-20 My before the present. Using data collected primarily by X-ray microcomputed tomography (X-ray micro-CT), we demonstrate that the main elements of Hispaniolan anole ecomorphological diversity were in place in the Miocene. Phylogenetic analysis yields results consistent with the hypothesis that the ecomorphs that evolved in the Miocene are members of the same ecomorph clades extant today. The primary axes of ecomorphological diversity in the Hispaniolan anole fauna appear to have changed little between the Miocene and the present, providing evidence for the stability of ecological communities over macroevolutionary timescales.
authors.affiliation: School of Environmental and Rural Science, University of New England, Armidale, NSW 2351, Australia; Department of Organismic and Evolutionary Biology and Museum of Comparative Zoology, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA 02138; emma.sherratt@gmail.com.
authors.forename: Emma
authors.identifier: http://orcid.org/0000-0003-2164-7877
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Sherratt
authors.affiliation: Department of Organismic and Evolutionary Biology and Museum of Comparative Zoology, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA 02138;
authors.forename: María
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: del Rosario Castañeda
authors.affiliation: School of Earth, Atmospheric and Environmental Sciences, University of Manchester, Manchester M13 9PL, United Kingdom;
authors.forename: Russell J
authors.identifier: http://orcid.org/0000-0002-2803-9471
authors.initials: RJ
authors.lastname: Garwood
authors.affiliation: Center for Population Biology, University of California, Davis, CA 95616;
authors.forename: D Luke
authors.initials: DL
authors.lastname: Mahler
authors.affiliation: Department of Molecular Genetics and Microbiology, University of Florida, Gainesville, FL 32610;
authors.forename: Thomas J
authors.initials: TJ
authors.lastname: Sanger
authors.affiliation: Département d'Ecologie et de Gestion de la Biodiversité, UMR 7179, Muséum National d'Histoire Naturelle, Paris, France; Evolutionary Morphology of Vertebrates, Ghent University, B-9000 Gent, Belgium;
authors.forename: Anthony
authors.identifier: http://orcid.org/0000-0003-0991-4434
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Herrel
authors.affiliation: Department of Vertebrate Zoology, National Museum of Natural History, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, DC 20560.
authors.forename: Kevin
authors.identifier: http://orcid.org/0000-0001-9165-3522
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: de Queiroz
authors.affiliation: Department of Organismic and Evolutionary Biology and Museum of Comparative Zoology, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA 02138;
authors.forename: Jonathan B
authors.initials: JB
authors.lastname: Losos
mesh_terms: D018647:Amber / Q000737:chemistry*; D000818:Animals; D001499:Bayes Theorem; D049628:Body Size; D001921:Brain / Q000033:anatomy & histology / Q000000981:diagnostic imaging; D017691:Caribbean Region; D016002:Discriminant Analysis; D017753:Ecosystem; D005580:Fossils; D021621:Imaging, Three-Dimensional; D008116:Lizards / Q000033:anatomy & histology / Q000502:physiology*; D010802:Phylogeny; D013997:Time Factors; D055114:X-Ray Microtomography
chemical_list: D018647:Amber
keywords: Anolis; Hispaniola; Miocene; adaptive radiation; ecomorph