Thomas de Solan, Barry Sinervo, Philippe Geniez, Patrice David, Pierre-André CrochetPlease use the format "First name initials family name" as in "Marie S. Curie, Niels H. D. Bohr, Albert Einstein, John R. R. Tolkien, Donna T. Strickland"
<p style="text-align: justify;">Conspicuous body colors and color polymorphism have been hypothesized to increase rates of speciation. Conspicuous colors are evolutionary labile, and often involved in intraspecific sexual signaling and thus may provide a raw material from which reproductive isolation can easily evolve, while polymorphism could favor rapid evolution of new lineages through morphic speciation. Here, we investigated the influence of the presence/absence of conspicuous colorations, and of color polymorphism on the speciation of Lacertids. We used several state-dependent diversification models, and showed that, regardless of the methods, conspicuous colorations and color polymorphism were not related to species speciation. While the lack of correlation between conspicuous colorations and speciation rates is in line with most of the literature testing this hypothesis, the results for color polymorphism contradict previous studies, and question the generality of the morphic speciation hypothesis.</p>
coloration, sexual selection, polymorphism, speciation, reptiles
