title: Osteological postcranial traits in hylid anurans indicate a morphological continuum between swimming and jumping locomotor modes.
abstract: Anurans exhibit a particularly wide range of locomotor modes that result in wide variations in their skeletal structure. This article investigates the possible correlation between morphological aspects of the hylid postcranial skeleton and their different locomotor modes and habitat use. To do so, we analyzed 18 morphometric postcranial variables in 19 different anuran species representative of a variety of locomotor modes (jumper, hopper, walker, and swimmer) and habitat uses (arboreal, bush, terrestrial, and aquatic). Our results show that the evolution of the postcranial hylid skeleton cannot be explained by one single model, as for example, the girdles suggest modular evolution while the vertebral column suggests other evolutionary modules. In conjunction with data from several other studies, we were able to show a relationship between hylid morphology and habitat use; offering further evidence that the jumper/swimmer and walker/hopper locomotor modes exhibit quite similar morphological architecture. This allowed us to infer that new locomotor modalities are, in fact, generated along a morphological continuum. J. Morphol. 278:403-417, 2017. © 2017 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.
authors.affiliation: CONICET-Universidad Nacional de Salta (UNSa), Facultad de Ciencias Naturales, Cátedra Vertebrados, Salta, Argentina.
authors.forename: Mónica
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Soliz
authors.affiliation: Unidad Ejecutora Lillo (UEL)-CONICET-Instituto de Herpetología, Fundación Miguel Lillo, Tucumán, Argentina.
authors.forename: Maria J
authors.identifier: 0000-0003-4763-6973
authors.initials: MJ
authors.lastname: Tulli
authors.affiliation: Instituto de Biodiversidad Neotropical (IBN)-CONICET, Universidad Nacional de Tucumán (UNT), Facultad de Ciencias Naturales, Cátedra Biología General, Tucumán, Argentina.
authors.forename: Virginia
authors.initials: V
authors.lastname: Abdala
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D001001:Anura / Q000033:anatomy & histology* / Q000502:physiology; D005075:Biological Evolution; D017753:Ecosystem; D008124:Locomotion; D059166:Osteology; D012863:Skeleton / Q000033:anatomy & histology* / Q000502:physiology; D013045:Species Specificity
keywords: ecomorphology; frogs; habitat use; postcranial skeleton; skeleton