Trophic niche divergence of Cultrinae species at phylogenetic scale
In overall, when all the data pooled together, the 7 Cultrinae species showed similar niche space, with a lot overlap as well as some differences (Fig. 7). At the phylogenetic scale, to identify the possible niche conservatism, trophic differences were compared between distantly related species, closely related species and sister species. It was found that trophic differences between distantly related species were significantly larger than closely related species (P =0.02 < 0.05), indicating the possible NC (Fig. 8). However, while making comparison between sister species and closely related species, it was found that trophic differences between sister species were larger than those between closely related species (excluding sister species) (not statistically significant, P>0.05), indicating non-NC existing here.