Muscle mass drives cost in sexually selected arthropod weapons.

ABSTRACT: Sexually selected weapons often function as honest signals of fighting ability. If poor-quality individuals produce high-quality weapons, then receivers should focus on other, more reliable signals. Cost is one way to maintain signal integrity. The costs of weapons tend to increase with relative weapon size, and thereby restrict large weapons to high-quality individuals who can produce and maintain them. Weapon cost, however, appears to be unpredictably variable both within and across taxa, and the mechanisms underlying this variation remain unclear. We suggest variation in weapon cost may result from variation in weapon composition-specifically, differences in the amount of muscle mass directly associated with the weapon. We test this idea by measuring the metabolic cost of sexually selec

SUBMITTER: O'Brien DM 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6599981 | biostudies-literature | 2019 Jun

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature