It is not always about body size: evidence of Rensch's rule in a male weapon

Author:

Machado Glauco1ORCID,Buzatto Bruno A.23ORCID,Samia Diogo S. M.1ORCID

Affiliation:

1. LAGE do Departamento de Ecologia, Instituto de Biociências, Universidade de São Paulo, São Paulo, SP 05508-090, Brazil

2. Department of Biological Sciences (E8C 209), Macquarie University, Eastern Road, Sydney 2109, NSW, Australia

3. Centre for Evolutionary Biology, School of Biological Sciences (M092), The University of Western Australia, 35 Stirling Highway, Crawley 6009, WA, Australia

Abstract

In many species, sexual dimorphism increases with body size when males are the larger sex but decreases when females are the larger sex, a macro-evolutionary pattern known as Rensch's rule (RR). Although empirical studies usually focus exclusively on body size, Rensch's original proposal included sexual differences in other traits, such as ornaments and weapons. Here, we used a clade of harvestmen to investigate whether two traits follow RR: body size and length of the fourth pair of legs (legs IV), which are used as weapons in male–male fights. We found that males were slightly smaller than females and body size did not follow RR, whereas legs IV were much longer in males and followed RR. We propose that sexual selection might be stronger on legs IV length than on body size in males, and we discuss the potential role of condition dependence in the emergence of RR.

Funder

Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado de São Paulo

Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico

Publisher

The Royal Society

Subject

General Agricultural and Biological Sciences,Agricultural and Biological Sciences (miscellaneous)

Reference40 articles.

1. Rensch B. 1960 Evolution above the species level. New York, NY: Columbia University Press.

2. Sex, Size and Gender Roles

3. Evolution of sexual size dimorphism in a frog obeys the inverse of Rensch's rule;Liao WB;Evol. Ecol.,2013

4. Allometry for Sexual Size Dimorphism: Pattern and Process in the Coevolution of Body Size in Males and Females

5. Sexual Selection

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