Data from: Evolutionary radiation strategy revealed in the Scarabaeidae with evidence of continuous spatiotemporal morphology and phylogenesis

<p>Evolutionary biology faces the important challenge of determining how to interpret the relationship between selection pressures and evolutionary radiation. The lack of morphological evidence on cross-species research adds to difficulty of this challenge.</p> <p>We proposed a new paradigm for evaluating the evolution of branches through changes in characters on continuous spatiotemporal scales, for better interpreting the impact of biotic/abiotic drivers on the evolutionary radiation. It reveals a causal link between morphological changes and selective pressures: consistent deformation signals for all tested characters on timeline, which provided strong support for the evolutionary hypothesis of relationship between scarabs and biotic/abiotic drivers; the evolutionary strategies under niche differentiation, which were manifested in the responsiveness degree of functional morphological characters with different selection pressure.</p> <p>This morphological information-driven integrative approach sheds light on the mechanism of macroevolution under different selection pressures and is applicable to more biodiversity research.</p>