Rate of evolutionary change in cranial morphology of the marsupial genus Monodelphis is constrained by the availability of additive genetic variation.

Abstract excerpt

We tested the hypothesis that the rate of marsupial cranial evolution is dependent on the distribution of genetic variation in multivariate space. To do so, we carried out a genetic analysis of cranial morphological variation in laboratory strains of Monodelphis domestica and used estimates of genetic covariation to analyse the morphological diversification of the Monodelphis brevicaudata species group. We found...

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