Rapid evolution to terrestrial life in Jamaican crabs

Christoph D. Schubart (), Rudolf Diesel and S. Blair Hedges
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Christoph D. Schubart: Fakultät für Biologie I, VHF, Universität Bielefeld
Rudolf Diesel: Fakultät für Biologie I, VHF, Universität Bielefeld
S. Blair Hedges: Pennsylvania State University

Nature, 1998, vol. 393, issue 6683, 363-365

Abstract: Abstract Crabs of the family Grapsidae are abundant organisms in most intertidal communities. However, relatively few species live in complete independence of the sea1. Of those species that do, Jamaica's nine endemic species of land crabs are unique in their exceptional adaptations to terrestrial life, which include the only active brood-care for larvae and juveniles known in crabs2,3,4,5,6. These adaptations, and the morphological similarity to a group of southeast Asian land-dwelling crabs, have raised the question of the number and age of land invasions of the Jamaican species. Here we present molecular evidence that Jamaican land crabs represent a single adaptive radiation from a marine ancestor that invaded terrestrial habitats only 4 million years (Myr) ago. A Late-Tertiary origin has also been found for lizards and frogs of Jamaica7,8,9 and probably reflects the Mid-Tertiary inundation of that island10.

Date: 1998
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DOI: 10.1038/30724

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