Fitness implications of sex-specific catch-up growth in Nephila senegalensis, a spider with extreme reversed SSD.

ABSTRACT:

Background

Animal growth is often constrained by unfavourable conditions and divergences from optimal body size can be detrimental to an individual's fitness, particularly in species with determinate growth and a narrow time-frame for life-time reproduction. Growth restriction in early juvenile stages can later be compensated by means of plastic developmental responses, such as adaptive catch-up growth (the compensation of growth deficits through delayed development). Although sex differences regarding the mode and degree of growth compensation have been coherently predicted from sex-specific fitness payoffs, inconsistent results imply a need for further research. We used the African Nephila senegalensis, representing an extreme case of female-biased sexual size dimorphism (

SUBMITTER: Neumann R 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5694211 | biostudies-literature | 2017

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature