However, any publication bias in reported examples of repeated adaptive evolution would presumably affect all forms of repeated evolution and all types of phenotypic characteristics studied.
In addition, repeated evolution of quantitative traits mediated by large effect alleles is found across plant phylogeny.
Repeated evolution in overlapping mimicry rings among North American velvet ants, Nature Communications 3 1272 | doi 10.1038/ncomms2275 (OA) Joseph S. Wilson, Joshua P. Jahner, Kevin A. Williams, and Matthew L. Forister (2013).
As Button notes, "sauropod skulls also provide interesting data in the broader context of the evolution of sauropod feeding mechanisms, where we see the repeated evolution of similar functional complexes".
These features, coupled with a limited genetic toolbox and reduced dispersal between islands, appear to be common to situations of repeated evolution of ecomorphs.
Neo-darwinists have long argued that parallel evolution, the repeated evolution of similar phenotypes in closely related lineages, is caused by the action of similar environments on alleles at many loci of small effect.
We argue that repeated evolution of ecomorphs results from a rugged adaptive landscape, with the few peaks associated with camouflage for these free-living taxa against the markedly low diversity of predators on isolated islands.
Kingsley's team scanned all the genomes for regions where repeated evolution had occurred, finding 147 of them and confirming that repeated evolution was rampant in these fish.
"This paper shows that repeated evolution can occur by 'reusing' the same genetic mechanisms over and over again".
For decades, evolutionary biologists have been fascinated by the repeated evolution of freshwater traits in marine sticklebacks.
Researchers have documented repeated evolution in other organisms, but the sticklebacks are unique because the freshwater transition has occurred so many times.
