Trait Heredity as a predictor of morphological distance between closely related species, American Societey of Naturalists Virtual Asilomar 2021

Since Dolph Schluter’s landmark paper on structures of trait variation and its relationship to morphological distance between closely related species, it has been accepted that evolution tends to occur along genetic lines of least resistance – that is, in the direction of maximum phenotypic variance in populations. In this small study, I look at the heredity structures in populations of two closely related bryozoans belonging to the genus Stylopoma. Medians of member-level trait values in colonies appear to be heritable between parent and offspring colonies. Interestingly, median trait values that are most heritable correspond to trait values that are the most divergent between the two species. I propose that the degree of heredity of trait values is predictive of morphological distance in closely related taxa, a corollary to work on phenotypic variance and its relationship to evolutionary divergence.