Functional evolution in threespine stickleback

Convergent evolution, in which populations produce similar phenotypes in response to similar selection pressure, is strong evidence for the role of natural selection in shaping biological diversity. In some cases, closely related populations can produce functionally similar but phenotypically divergent forms in response to selection. Functional convergence with morphological divergence has been observed in laboratory selection experiments and computer simulations, but while potentially common, is rarely recognized in nature. Here, we present data from the North Pacific threespine stickleback radiation showing that ecologically and functionally similar, but morphologically divergent phenotypes rapidly evolved when an ancestral population colonized freshwater benthic habitats in parallel. Additionally, we show that in this system, functional convergence substantially increases morphospace occupation relative to ancestral phenotypes, which suggests that convergent evolution may, paradoxically, be an important and previously underappreciated source of morphological diversity.;Sexual dimorphism is common in nature and has the potential to increase intraspecific variation in performance and patterns of resource use. We sought to determine whether anadromous threespine stickleback, Gasterosteus aculeatus, exhibit sexual dimorphism in feeding kinematics. We document, for the first time in fishes, divergence between males and females in both the timing of key movements as well as the magnitude of excursions reached by the hyoid, jaws and neurocranium during prey capture. Remarkably, the morphological jaw protrusion divergence in anadromous males and females is similar to jaw protrusion divergence between ecomorphs in a benthic-limnetic species pair, with limnetics exhibiting female-like patterns of protrusion and benthics exhibiting male-like patterns. These results suggest that sexual dimorphism in feeding functional morphology exists in nature and may have played an important role in the threespine stickleback radiation.;The evolution of ecological divergence in closely related species is a key component of adaptive radiation. However, in most examples of adaptive radiation the mechanistic basis of ecological divergence remains unclear. A classic example is seen in the young benthic and limnetic stickleback species pairs of British Columbia. In each pair the benthic species feeds on littoral macroinvertebrates whereas the limnetic feeds on pelagic zooplankton. We examined the functional basis of ecological divergence in the stickleback species pair from Paxton Lake, BC, using biomechanical models of fish feeding applied to morphological traits. We reveal a previously unknown suite of complex morphological traits that affect rapid ecological divergence in sympatric stickleback. These results indicate that postglacial divergence in stickleback involves many functional systems and shows the value of investigating the functional consequences of phenotypic divergence in adaptive radiation.