The findings suggest that selection on a greater number of niche dimensions promotes evolutionary divergence.
The value of using morphological variation in the present context lies in the evidence for its genetic basis and functional significance – the variation in the traits assayed reflect, in part, genetic variation that contributes to performance differences within specific environments which has promoted evolutionary divergence in these traits across populations (Keeley et al. 2005, 2007).
We suggest that biogeographic changes in Southeast Asia in the past five million years, particularly those induced by sea level changes [41], may have been a factor promoting the evolutionary divergence of terrestrial animals in the Sundaland.
Because Midas cichlids are known to mate color assortatively, the putative genetic correlation of this color polymorphism with an eco-morphological divergence suggests an innate potential to promote ecological and evolutionary divergence across this species complex.
Subsequent diversifications of Pseuduvaria gave rise to clade III at ca. 6.6 Mya (95% HPD: 9.5-3.8 Mya; Figure 3: node 5) and clades I-II collectively at ca. 5.6 Mya (95% HPD: 8.1-3.2 Mya; Figure 3: node 10); this might be linked to these global climatic oscillations, with evolutionary divergence promoted by the significantly warmer and wetter climate.
It appears highly plausible that developmental plasticity in the trophic morphology of cichlid oral jaws could represent an ancestral "flexible stem" that promoted their rapid and repeated evolutionary divergence along a common bentho-pelagic feeding axis [50], [81], and there are strong indications that this could be a general phenomenon when fishes invade new lakes.
> -wrap-foot> Dinergence in the conservation level of promoter status reflected evolutionary divergence between the species.
What factors explain the extent to which divergent selection drives evolutionary divergence?
Therefore, it is not surprising that this relatively unstable region of the human genome is also involved in promoting the malignant phenotype as well as contributing to evolutionary divergence, possibly employing similar mechanisms (Krull et al, 2007).
Frequently, however, the course of speciation involves the processes postulated by both theories reproductive isolation starts as a by-product of gradual evolutionary divergence but is completed by natural selection directly promoting the evolution of prezygotic RIMs.
