Have Male and Female Genitalia Coevolved? a Phylogenetic Analysis of Genitalic Morphology and Sexual Size Dimorphism in Web-Building Spiders (araneae: Araneoidea)

dc.contributor.authorRamos, Margarita
dc.contributor.authorCoddington, Jonathan A.
dc.contributor.authorChristenson, Terry E.
dc.contributor.authorIrschick, Duncan J.
dc.date.accessioned2008-07-23T13:31:07Z
dc.date.available2008-07-23T13:31:07Z
dc.date.issued2005
dc.description.abstractAbstract Sexual size dimorphism (SSD) can strongly influence the evolution of reproductive strategies and life history. If SSD is extreme, and other characters (e.g., genitalic size) also increase with size, then functional conflicts may arise between the sexes. Spiders offer an excellent opportunity to investigate this issue because of their wide range of SSD. By using modern phylogenetic methods with 16 species of orb-weaving spiders, we provide strong evidence for the "positive genitalic divergence" model, implying that sexual genitalic dimorphism (SGD) increases as SSD increases. This pattern is supported by an evolutionary mismatch between the absolute sizes of male and female genitalia across species. Indeed, our findings reveal a dramatic reversal from male genitalia that are up to 87X larger than female genitalia in size-monomorphic species to female genitalia that are up to 2.8X larger in extremely size-dimorphic species. We infer that divergence in SGD could limit SSD both in spiders, and potentially in other taxa as well. Further, male and female body size, as well as male and female genitalia size, are decoupled evolutionarily. Finally, we show a negative scaling (hypoallometry) of male and female genitalic morphology within sexes. Evolutionary forces specific to each sex, such as larger female size (increased fecundity) or smaller male size (enhanced mate-searching ability), may be balanced by stabilizing selection on relative genitalic size.
dc.format.extent361612 bytes
dc.format.extent1989–1999
dc.format.mimetypeapplication/pdf
dc.identifier0014-3820
dc.identifier.citationRamos, Margarita, Coddington, Jonathan A., Christenson, Terry E., and Irschick, Duncan J. 2005. "<a href="https://repository.si.edu/handle/10088/5427">Have Male and Female Genitalia Coevolved? a Phylogenetic Analysis of Genitalic Morphology and Sexual Size Dimorphism in Web-Building Spiders (araneae: Araneoidea)</a>." <em>Evolution</em>, 59, (9) 1989–1999.
dc.identifier.issn0014-3820
dc.identifier.urihttp://hdl.handle.net/10088/5427
dc.language.isoen_US
dc.relation.ispartofEvolution 59 (9)
dc.titleHave Male and Female Genitalia Coevolved? a Phylogenetic Analysis of Genitalic Morphology and Sexual Size Dimorphism in Web-Building Spiders (araneae: Araneoidea)
dc.typearticle
sro.description.unitNH-Entomology
sro.description.unitNMNH
sro.identifier.itemID59927
sro.identifier.refworksID72328
sro.identifier.urlhttps://repository.si.edu/handle/10088/5427

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