Morphological integration and natural selection in the postcranium of wild verreaux's sifaka (Propithecus verreauxi verreauxi).

Morphological integration manifests as strong phenotypic covariation among interacting traits. In this study, a graph-theory approach is used to analyze patterns of morphological integration in a wild population of Verreaux's sifaka (Propithecus verreauxi verreauxi). The motivation for this study is to determine the relative roles of development versus function in shaping patterns of morphological integration in the sifaka postcranium. A developmental and a functional hypothesis of integration are compared with the observed pattern of integration and the fit of these hypotheses is assessed using information theoretic statistics. Correlational selection is also estimated on limb elements. Information theoretic statistics indicate that the developmental hypothesis fits the observed pattern of integration slightly better than the functional hypothesis. Only two pairs of traits experience correlational selection but neither of the traits within each pair are morphologically integrated. The observed pattern of integration contains several trait-trait associations that are specified by both the functional and developmental hypotheses. These results likely reflect the nested covariation structure in which a novel locomotor mode, vertical clinging and leaping, is derived from a primitive quadrupedal morphotype. Copyright 2008 Wiley-Liss, Inc.