Digest: Unveiling the role of chemical communication in lizard diversification

Abstract

Although many studies looking at the role that sexual selection plays in macroevolution have focused on the involvement of visual and acoustic signals, the potential influence of chemical communication remains unexplored. Instead of focusing on well-studied instances of sexually selected traits, Murali et al. (2023) analyze chemical communication to test whether sexual selection could help explain large-scale species diversity patterns in lizards. Their results suggest that, at least in lizards, chemical communication is uncoupled from differential diversification dynamics across clades.