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Author (up) Stillwell, R.C.; Fox, C.W. url  doi
openurl 
  Title Environmental effects on sexual size dimorphism of a seed-feeding beetle Type Journal Article
  Year 2007 Publication Oecologia Abbreviated Journal Oecologia  
  Volume 153 Issue 2 Pages 273-280  
  Keywords  
  Abstract Sexual size dimorphism is widespread in animals but varies considerably among species and among populations within species. Much of this variation is assumed to be due to variance in selection on males versus females. However, environmental variables could affect the development of females and males differently, generating variation in dimorphism. Here we use a factorial experimental design to simultaneously examine the effects of rearing host and temperature on sexual dimorphism of the seed beetle, Callosobruchus maculatus. We found that the sexes differed in phenotypic plasticity of body size in response to rearing temperature but not rearing host, creating substantial temperature-induced variation in sexual dimorphism; females were larger than males at all temperatures, but the degree of this dimorphism was smallest at the lowest temperature. This change in dimorphism was due to a gender difference in the effect of temperature on growth rate and not due to sexual differences in plasticity of development time. Furthermore, the sex ratio (proportion males) decreased with decreasing temperature and became female-biased at the lowest temperature. This suggests that the temperature-induced change in dimorphism is potentially due to a change in non-random larval mortality of males versus females. This most important implication of this study is that rearing temperature can generate considerable intraspecific variation in the degree of sexual size dimorphism, though most studies assume that dimorphism varies little within species. Future studies should focus on whether sexual differences in phenotypic plasticity of body size are a consequence of adaptive canalization of one sex against environmental variation in temperature or whether they simply reflect a consequence of non-adaptive developmental differences between males and females.  
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  Series Editor Series Title Abbreviated Series Title  
  Series Volume Series Issue Edition  
  ISSN 0029-8549 ISBN Medium  
  Area Expedition Conference  
  Notes Approved no  
  Call Number PVCC @ lwinters @ Serial 65  
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