Repeated evolution and the impact of evolutionary history on adaptation

Background Whether natural selection can erase the imprint of past evolutionary history from phenotypes has been a topic of much debate. A key source of evidence that present-day selection can override historically contingent effects comes from the repeated evolution of similar adaptations in different taxa. Yet classic examples of repeated evolution are often among closely related taxa, suggesting the likelihood that similar adaptations evolve is contingent on the length of time separating taxa. To resolve this, we performed a meta-analysis of published reports of repeated evolution. Results Overall, repeated evolution was far more likely to be documented among closely related than distantly related taxa. However, not all forms of adaptation seemed to exhibit the same pattern. The evolution of similar behavior and physiology seemed frequent in distantly related and closely related taxa, while the repeated evolution of morphology was heavily skewed towards closely related taxa. Functionally redundant characteristics—alternative phenotypes that achieve the same functional outcome—also appeared less contingent. Conclusions If the literature provides a reasonable reflection of the incidence of repeated evolution in nature, our findings suggest that natural selection can overcome contingent effects to an extent, but it depends heavily on the aspect of the phenotype targeted by selection. Electronic supplementary material The online version of this article (doi:10.1186/s12862-015-0424-z) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.