Sexual Dichromatism Drives Diversification within a Major Radiation of African Amphibians.

ABSTRACT: Theory predicts that sexually dimorphic traits under strong sexual selection, particularly those involved with intersexual signaling, can accelerate speciation and produce bursts of diversification. Sexual dichromatism (sexual dimorphism in color) is widely used as a proxy for sexual selection and is associated with rapid diversification in several animal groups, yet studies using phylogenetic comparative methods to explicitly test for an association between sexual dichromatism and diversification have produced conflicting results. Sexual dichromatism is rare in frogs, but it is both striking and prevalent in African reed frogs, a major component of the diverse frog radiation termed Afrobatrachia. In contrast to most other vertebrates, reed frogs display female-biased dichromatism in which

SUBMITTER: Portik DM 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6934645 | biostudies-literature | 2019 Nov

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature