Variation in allometry along the weapon-signal continuum.

Autor: McCullough, Erin L., O'Brien, Devin M.
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Zdroj: Evolutionary Ecology; Aug2022, Vol. 36 Issue 4, p591-604, 14p
Abstrakt: Structures used in intrasexual competition span a continuum, with pure weapons that are used exclusively in physical fights at one extreme and pure aggressive signals that are used exclusively to assess and threaten rivals at the other. We propose this weapon-signal continuum offers a framework for understanding the variation in allometric slopes among intra-sexually selected structures. We predict allometric slopes will become steeper as the relative importance of signaling increases, because aggressive signaling will favor the evolution of hypervariable structures that facilitate the assessment of subtle differences in body size. We provide preliminary empirical support for the continuum hypothesis using species with different types of armaments and offer suggestions for how to test the weapon-signal continuum among closely related species. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
Databáze: Complementary Index
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