The development of sexual dimorphism: seasonal and lifetime mass changes in bighorn sheep

Abstract

Individually marked bighorn sheep (Ovis canadensis) were monitored to determine how seasonal and lifetime changes in mass affected the development of sexual dimorphism, and to what extent mass at a given age could predict mass of the same sheep at a later age. We trapped sheep from late May to early October each year from 1971 to 1985 in a population artificially kept at low density. Lambs and yearlings gained mass linearly from June to September, while absolute mass gain of older sheep was faster in June–July than in August–September. Males gained more mass than females each summer up to at least 3 years of age. Relative summer mass gain, calculated as a proportion of body mass at the beginning of June, was the same for male and female lambs but was greater for male than for female yearlings and 2-year-olds. With the exception of lambs, all age-classes lost mass during winter. Mass loss between September 15 and June 5 was greater for females than for males, possibly because ewes lost mass through parturition in late May. For both sexes, asymptotic mass was not reached until at least 7 years of age. Mass at 4 and 12 months of age was correlated with mass at 4 years. For all sex–age classes, mass on June 5 was negatively correlated with summer mass gain. For lambs and yearlings, winter mass loss was positively correlated with mass on September 15. Our results suggest that at low population density, sheep optimize rather than maximize summer mass accumulation. Most sexual dimorphism develops after weaning, through faster mass gain by males than by females at 1 and 2 years of age and possibly a longer season of mass gain each year for males than for females after females reach puberty.