Comparative analyses of reproductive structures in harvestmen (opiliones) reveal multiple transitions from courtship to precopulatory antagonism.

ABSTRACT: Explaining the rapid, species-specific diversification of reproductive structures and behaviors is a long-standing goal of evolutionary biology, with recent research tending to attribute reproductive phenotypes to the evolutionary mechanisms of female mate choice or intersexual conflict. Progress in understanding these and other possible mechanisms depends, in part, on reconstructing the direction, frequency and relative timing of phenotypic evolution of male and female structures in species-rich clades. Here we examine evolution of reproductive structures in the leiobunine harvestmen or "daddy long-legs" of eastern North America, a monophyletic group that includes species in which males court females using nuptial gifts and other species that are equipped for apparent precopulatory antago

SUBMITTER: Burns MM 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC3677920 | biostudies-literature | 2013

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature