Department of Biological Sciences

The southern Appalachian Mountains are a global biodiversity hotspot for salamanders. Mountains may promote high species richness by acting as evolutionary catalysts and/or refugia. How mountains influence other dimensions of diversity – ecological and phenotypic – is uncertain. Here, we assess how abiotic factors that contribute to microhabitat availability vary with elevation gradient throughout the Appalachian Mountains, surrounding foothills, and lowlands. We compare this to elevational patterns in microhabitat use, phenotype, and macroevolutionary features (adaptive peaks), in a group encompassing [...]