Coevolution of female and male genital components to avoid genital size mismatches in sexually dimorphic spiders.

ABSTRACT:

Background

In most animal groups, it is unclear how body size variation relates to genital size differences between the sexes. While most morphological features tend to scale with total somatic size, this does not necessarily hold for genitalia because divergent evolution in somatic size between the sexes would cause genital size mismatches. Theory predicts that the interplay of female-biased sexual size dimorphism (SSD) and sexual genital size dimorphism (SGD) should adhere to the 'positive genital divergence', the 'constant genital divergence', or the 'negative genital divergence' model, but these models remain largely untested. We test their validity in the spider family Nephilidae known for the highest degrees of SSD among terrestrial animals.

Results

Through comparative

SUBMITTER: Lupse N 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4989301 | biostudies-literature | 2016 Aug

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature