Territorial competition and the evolutionary loss of sexual size dimorphism.

ABSTRACT: Non-sexual social selection can underlie the evolution of sexually monomorphic phenotypes. A causal relationship between territorial competition and sexual monomorphism predicts that male and female competitors should employ similar contest behavior and that contest outcome should depend on the same traits in males and females. We test this prediction in a sexually monomorphic cichlid fish of the genus Tropheus, in which males and females defend individual feeding territories. Lineages basal to Tropheus are sexually dimorphic and have non-territorial females, suggesting that a switch to female territoriality and loss of sexual dimorphism occurred in the Tropheus lineage. We compare rates of agonistic behavior and the effects of body size asymmetries on competitive succ

SUBMITTER: Odreitz U 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4359285 | biostudies-literature | 2015

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature