Sexual and Seasonal Dimorphism in the Cumberland Plateau Woodland Salamander, Plethodon kentucki (Caudata: Plethodontidae)

Marvin, Glenn A.

doi:10.1643/ch-08-116

Cited by 18 publications

(22 citation statements)

References 30 publications

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“…Longer and wider trunks in female salamanders meet the assumptions of the fecundity advantage hypothesis (Kupfer, ; Shine, ), and are commonly found among salamanders of various families (e.g., Bakkegard & Guyer, ; Malmgren & Thollesson, ; Marvin, ; Reinhard & Kupfer, ; Xiong, Liu, Li, Zhang, & Min, ). As trunk size is directly related to pleuroperitoneal cavity size limiting number and size of eggs this trait is directly linked to female reproductive success (Halliday & Verrell, ; Kalezic, Crnobrnja, Dorovic, & Dzukic, ; Salthe, ; Verrell & Francillon, ).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 78%

“…Although, the majority of species show female‐biased SSD in body size, there are about 19% of salamander species exhibiting male‐biased SSD (Kupfer, ; Shine, ). As a variety of sexually dimorphic traits were found among salamandrids, including larger trunks in females or larger cloacae, limbs and heads in males (e.g., Bovero, Sotgiu, Castellano, & Giacoma, ; Malmgren & Thollesson, ; Marvin, ; Reinhard et al, ) we assumed that certain patterns of SSD and SShD manifested very early in the ancestral line of Salamandridae.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Flesh and bone: An integrative approach towards sexual size dimorphism of a terrestrial salamander (genus Salamandrina)

Pogoda

Kupfer

2018

Journal of Morphology

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Males and females face different selection pressures due to a sexually biased investment into reproduction. This often results in different morphologies. Sexual size dimorphisms (SSD) can give us important hints on the evolution and biology of a species. Salamanders are a perfectly suited system for investigating SSD, including a diversity of reproductive modes and behaviors, and patterns of SSD combined with life history traits in a phylogenetic context help us to understand the evolution of these processes. Because spectacled salamanders (genus Salamandrina) are the phylogenetically most basal taxon of the Salamandridae, they play a key role in reconstructing the evolutionary pattern of SSD. Combining extensive external and skeletal measurements of the cranium, limbs, and the pelvic girdle using high-resolution micro Computer Tomography (μCT) yielded an integrative analysis of expressed SSD of morphology and osteology of Salamandrina perspicillata. Multivariate analysis of external characters showed that males generally had larger cloacae, heads, and limbs relative to body size, while females had larger trunks. Analysis of osteology confirmed this pattern but also revealed new dimorphic characters in the cranium and the pelvic girdle. Dimorphic characters in external morphology and osteology are likely linked to the different reproductive roles of the sexes and support sexual rather than ecological selection as the primary force acting on the phenotype of the phylogenetically basal salamandrids.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 78%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Flesh and bone: An integrative approach towards sexual size dimorphism of a terrestrial salamander (genus Salamandrina)

Pogoda

Kupfer

2018

Journal of Morphology

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“…These data also provided growth trajectories with an ontogenesis of SSD detected before maturity (SSD index = 0.097) and with a nearly full range of practical ages between years, reflecting monthly growth from April to October except for a winter-dormant period, for our understanding of the indeterminate growth pattern (Kozlowski and Uchmañski 1987). This pattern displays rapid growth prior to maturity, which results in the best growth curve being sigmoid (Arntzen 2000;Blackwell et al 2003;Marvin 2009). …”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 96%

“…Female-larger SSD may therefore depend on fecundity that controls offspring production, according to energy allocation or reproductive investment (Heino and Kaitala 1999;Marvin 2009). In terms of a functional fecundity, selecting larger body size in S. keyserlingii results in more increased clutch size (averaged 200 eggs in a full clutch: Hasumi and Kanda 1998) than that of other caudate amphibians (e.g., cryptobranchids, amphiumids, and some ambystomatids lay 100 eggs in a clutch; Salthe 1969) and more delayed age at maturity in females than in males (this study).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…They concluded that only skeletochronology and CMR are reliable. In amphibians, CMR usually is not very effective for age estimation because of a small number of recaptured animals (Marvin 2001(Marvin , 2009Blackwell et al 2003). In addition, nonindependence of recapture data restricts the analysis of a relationship between age and body size (Griffiths and Brook 2005).…”

Section: Study Animal and Areamentioning

confidence: 99%

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Age, Body Size, and Sexual Dimorphism in Size and Shape in Salamandrella keyserlingii (Caudata: Hynobiidae)

Hasumi

2010

Evol Biol

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In organisms with determinate growth, sexual size dimorphism (SSD) occurs before maturity during the developmental process of growing apart, an ontogenetic perspective on the evolution of SSD. If the direction of SSD (female-larger SSD) is known, patterns of growth can be tested with one-tailed statistical distributions. In indeterminate growing organisms as well, does SSD occur before maturity? If it occurs, whether is females' larger mean body size caused by a difference in age at maturity, age-specific size, divergent growth prior to maturity, or selection on post-maturational growth? How important is biphasic, sexual shape dimorphism (BSSD) for determinants of SSD? Biphasic characteristics are those that differ between adult aquatic-and terrestrial-phase morphs, and shape is size of a characteristic relative to body size. To address those questions, I determined age and body size based on a careful description of a growth trajectory for each sex in Salamandrella keyserlingii, using 555 independent data points from skeletochronological studies. Females reached maturity at 3-4 years of age, a year later than males that reached maturity at 2-3 years of age (mean body size: males = 57.63 mm, females = 61.70 mm; delayed sexual maturity resulted in SSD). However, SSD was highly detected before maturity (SSD index = 0.097), and females after maturity continued to grow and resulted in larger asymptotic size than males. Traits of BSSD were greater in males than in females. These results suggest that when determining SSD the difference in mean adult-body size results from the difference in age-specific size and the female-larger SSD develops to resolve intersexual ontogenetic conflict by allowing small-sized males to swell their whole body during the aquatic phase as much as large-sized females.

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Male mate preference as an agent of fecundity selection in a polymorphic salamander

Jaworski

Lattanzio

Hickerson

et al. 2018

Ecology and Evolution

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Color polymorphisms are associated with variation in other traits which may affect individual fitness, and these color‐trait associations are expected to contribute to nonrandom mating in polymorphic species. The red‐backed salamander (Plethodon cinereus) exhibits a polymorphism in dorsal pattern: striped and unstriped, and previous studies have suggested that they may mate nonrandomly. However, the mechanism(s) contributing to this behavior remain unclear. Here we consider the role that male preference may have in driving mating behavior in P. cinereus. We limit our focus to striped individuals because this morph is most likely to be choosy given their dominant, aggressive behavioral profiles relative to unstriped males. Specifically, we evaluated (a) whether striped males preferentially associate with females with respect to her dorsum color, size, and body condition and (b) if so, whether female traits are evaluated via visual or chemical cues. We also considered whether the frequency of another male social behavior, nose taps, was associated with mate preferences. We found that striped male P. cinereus nose tapped more often to preferred females. However, males only assessed potential mates via chemical cues, preferring larger females overall. Reproductive phenology data on a sample of gravid females drawn from the same population indicated that the color morphs do not differ in reproductive traits, but larger females have greater fecundity. Given our findings, we conclude that female P. cinereus are under fecundity selection, mediated by male preference. In this manner, male mating behavior contributes to observations of nonrandom mate associations in this population of P. cinereus.

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Sexual and Seasonal Dimorphism in the Cumberland Plateau Woodland Salamander, Plethodon kentucki (Caudata: Plethodontidae)

Cited by 18 publications

References 30 publications

Flesh and bone: An integrative approach towards sexual size dimorphism of a terrestrial salamander (genus Salamandrina)

Flesh and bone: An integrative approach towards sexual size dimorphism of a terrestrial salamander (genus Salamandrina)

Age, Body Size, and Sexual Dimorphism in Size and Shape in Salamandrella keyserlingii (Caudata: Hynobiidae)

Male mate preference as an agent of fecundity selection in a polymorphic salamander

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