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Physical principles and laws determine the set of possible organismal phenotypes. Constraints arising from development, the environment, and evolutionary history then yield workable, integrated phenotypes. We propose a theoretical and practical framework that considers the role of changing environments. This 'ecomechanical approach' integrates functional organismal traits with the ecological variables. This approach informs our ability to predict species shifts in survival and distribution and provides critical insights into phenotypic diversity. We outline how to use the ecomechanical paradigm using drag-induced bending in trees as an example. Our approach can be incorporated into existing research and help build interdisciplinary bridges. Finally, we identify key factors needed for mass data collection, analysis, and the dissemination of models relevant to this framework.

The island biogeography theory predicts that species richness in islands and island-like systems is the ultimate result of island isolation and area. Species with high dispersal capabilities are predicted to be less affected by these factors because of their capacity to move more efficiently between islands or habitats, and here we test this idea in bats, the only mammals capable of flight. We conducted mist net and acoustic surveys across 21 islands in the San Juan Archipelago (Washington State, United States) and adjacent northwest mainland to: (i) investigate the effects of island area, distance from mainland, and habitat on bat diversity; and (ii) evaluate whether differences in morphological (body mass, forearm length, wing loading) and ecological (dietary niche breadth, foraging guild) traits among species influence their prevalence across islands. We found that island size strongly influenced patterns of species richness, with larger islands having a greater number of bat species. However, neither island distance from mainland nor any measure of habitat availability was a significant predictor of species richness at the scale of this study. Additionally, we found that dietary niche breadth, as opposed to any morphological trait, best predicted the prevalence of species across the islands. Our results suggest that species with more specialized diets may be more vulnerable to habitat fragmentation, and provide insight into how geographic and ecological factors affect the diversity of insular bat communities, adding to growing knowledge about the role of species traits as mediators of their responses to large-scale landscape structure. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Bats are the only mammals capable of powered flight and have correspondingly specialized body plans, particularly in their limb morphology. The origin of bat flight is still not fully understood due to an uninformative fossil record but, from the perspective of a functional transition, it is widely hypothesized that bats evolved from gliding ancestors. Here, we test predictions of the gliding-to-flying hypothesis of the origin of bat flight by using phylogenetic comparative methods to model the evolution of forelimb and hindlimb traits on a dataset spanning four extinct bats and 231 extant mammals with diverse locomotor modes. Our results reveal that gliders exhibit adaptive trait optima (1) toward relatively elongate forelimbs that are intermediate between those of bats and non-gliding arborealists, and (2) toward relatively narrower but not longer hindlimbs that are intermediate between those of non-gliders and bats. We propose an adaptive landscape based on limb length and width optimal trends derived from our modeling analyses. Our results support a hypothetical evolutionary pathway wherein glider-like postcranial morphology precedes a bat-like morphology adapted to powered-flight, setting a foundation for future developmental, biomechanical, and evolutionary research to test this idea. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Multiple lineages of bats have evolved striking facial and body pelage makings, including spots, stripes and countershading. Although researchers have hypothesized that these markings mainly evolved for crypsis, this idea has never been tested in a quantitative and comparative context. We present the first comparative study integrating data on roosting ecology (roost type and colony size) and pelage coloration patterns across bats, and explore the hypothesis that the evolution of bat pelage markings is associated with roosting ecologies that benefit from crypsis. We find that lineages that roost in the vegetation have evolved pelage markings, especially stripes and neck collars, which may function in crypsis through disruptive coloration and a type of countershading that might be unique to bats. We also demonstrate that lineages that live in larger colonies and are larger in size tend not to have pelage markings, possibly because of reduced predation pressures due to the predator dilution effect and a lower number of potential predators. Although social functions for pelage color patterns are also possible, our work provides strong support for the idea that roosting ecology has driven the evolution of pelage markings in bats.

Among the developmental processes that have been proposed to influence the direction of evolution, the modular organization of developmental gene regulatory networks (GRNs) has shown particular promise. In theory, GRNs have core modules comprised of essential, conserved circuits of genes, and sub-modules of downstream, secondary circuits of genes that are more susceptible to variation. While this idea has received considerable interest as of late, the field of evo-devo lacks the experimental systems needed to rigorously evaluate this hypothesis. Here, we introduce an experimental system, the vertebrate tooth, that has great potential as a model for testing this hypothesis. Tooth development and its associated GRN have been well studied and modeled in both model and non-model organisms. We propose that the existence of modules within the tooth GRN explains both the conservation of developmental mechanisms and the extraordinary diversity of teeth among vertebrates. Based on experimental data, we hypothesize that there is a conserved core module of genes that is absolutely necessary to ensure tooth or cusp initiation and development. In regard to tooth shape variation between species, we suggest that more relaxed sub-modules activated at later steps of tooth development, for example, during the morphogenesis of the tooth and its cusps, control the different axes of tooth morphological variation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]