Morphometric variance, evolutionary constraints and their change through time in Late Devonian Palmatolepis conodonts.

Phenotypic variation is the raw material of evolution. Standing variation can facilitate response to selection along "lines of least evolutionary resistance", but selection itself might alter the structure of the variance. Shape was quantified using 2D geometric morphometrics in Palmatolepis conodonts through the Late Devonian period. Patterns of variance were characterized along the record by the variance‐covariance matrix (P‐matrix) and its first axis (Pmax). The Late Frasnian was marked by environmental oscillations culminating with the Frasnian/Famennian mass extinction. A shape response was associated with these fluctuations, together with a deflection of the Pmax and the P‐matrix. Thereafter, along the Famennian, Palmatolepis mean shape shifted from broad elements with a large platform to slender elements devoid of platform. This shift in shape was associated with a reorientation of Pmax and the P‐matrix, due to profound changes in the functioning of the elements selecting for new types of variants. Both cases provide empirical evidences that moving adaptive optimum can reorient phenotypic variation, boosting response to environmental changes. On such time scales, the question seems thus not to be whether the P‐matrix is stable, but how it is varying in response to changes in selection regimes and shifts in adaptive optimum. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]