Geometric morphometrics reveals sex-differential shape allometry in a spider
Entity
UAM. Departamento de Biología; UAM. Departamento de Psicología Biológica y de la SaludPublisher
PeerJ Inc.Date
2017-07-26Citation
10.7717/peerj.3617
PeerJ 5 (2017): e3617
ISSN
2167-8359 (online)DOI
10.7717/peerj.3617Funded by
The fieldwork was financially supported by the Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovación and the Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas to CFM (022/2007). JML is endorsed by project CGL2013-42643-PProject
Gobierno de España. CGL2013-42643-PSubjects
Animal behavior; Evolutionary studies; Sexual size dimorphism; Allometry; Sexual selection; Spiders; Donacosa merlini; Doñana; Biología y Biomedicina / BiologíaRights
Copyright 2017 Fernández-Montraveta and Marugán-LobónAbstract
Common scientific wisdom assumes that spider sexual dimorphism (SD) mostly
results from sexual selection operating on males. However, testing predictions from
this hypothesis, particularly male size hyperallometry, has been restricted by
methodological constraints. Here, using geometric morphometrics (GMM) we studied for the first time sex-differential shape allometry in a spider (Donacosa merlini, Araneae: Lycosidae) known to exhibit the reverse pattern (i.e., male-biased) of spider sexual size dimorphism. GMM reveals previously undetected sexdifferential shape allometry and sex-related shape differences that are size independent (i.e., associated to the y-intercept, and not to size scaling). Sexual shape dimorphism affects both the relative carapace-to-opisthosoma size and the carapace geometry, arguably resulting from sex differences in both reproductive roles (female egg load and male competition) and life styles (wandering males and burrowing females). Our results demonstrate that body portions may vary modularly in response to different selection pressures, giving rise to sex differences in shape, which reconciles previously considered mutually exclusive interpretations about the origins of spider SD
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Google Scholar:Fernández Montraveta, Carmen
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Marugán Lobón, Jesús Carlos
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