TY - JOUR T1 - Growth rate as a modulator of tooth patterning during adaptive radiations JF - bioRxiv DO - 10.1101/2021.12.05.471324 SP - 2021.12.05.471324 AU - Alexa Sadier AU - Neal Anthwal AU - Andrew L. Krause AU - Renaud Dessalles AU - Michael Lake AU - Laurent Bentolila AU - Robert Haase AU - Natalie Nieves AU - Sharlene Santana AU - Karen Sears Y1 - 2021/01/01 UR - http://biorxiv.org/content/early/2021/12/07/2021.12.05.471324.abstract N2 - The discovery of mechanistic rules that underlie phenotypic variation has been a longstanding goal of evolutionary biology. Developmental processes offer a potential source for such rules because they translate genomic variation into the population-scale phenotypic variation. However, our understanding of developmental rules is based on a handful of well-established model species which hindered identifying rules and investigating their evolution. Recent methodological advances, such as µCT scanning on soft tissues, two-photon imaging and modelling have facilitated the study of how developmental processes shape phenotypic variation in diverse, non-traditional model species. Here, we use the outstanding dental diversity of bats to investigate how the interplay between developmental processes can explain the morphological diversity in teeth. We find that the inhibitory cascade model, which has been used to predict the proportions of teeth and other serial organs, poorly predicts the variation in tooth number and size in bats. Instead, by tinkering with reaction/diffusion processes, we identify jaw growth as a key driver of the phenotypic evolution of tooth number and size critical to the different diets. By studying developmental processes in the context of adaptive evolution, we are able to discover a new developmental rule that explain and predict interspecific variation in serial organ number and proportion.Competing Interest StatementThe authors have declared no competing interest. ER -