Skip to main content
Article
Evolution of Mating Systems and Sexual Size Dimorphism in North American cyprinids
Behavioral Ecology and Sociobiology
  • Mark Pyron
  • T. E. Pitcher
  • Stephen J. Jacquemin, Wright State University - Lake Campus
Document Type
Article
Publication Date
1-1-2013
Abstract

Mating systems evolve with sexual size dimorphism (SSD) in many animals. Mating systems with males larger than females occur when males compete for female access or guard territories, while mating systems with group mating tend to occur in species where females are the same size or larger than males. In addition to variation in SSD with mating system, sperm competition varies among mating systems in predictable patterns. We examined the evolution of mating systems with SSD and testes mass in 111 North American Cyprinidae fishes using phylogenetic comparative methods. Our results demonstrate that the evolution of mating systems in Cyprinidae fishes is from ancestral taxa that are group spawners with females the same size or larger than males to pair spawning systems where males tend to be larger than females. We used an additive model to predict male and female body size from testes mass and mating system. Only mating system varied predictably with SSD. Our results for analyses of hyperallometry (Rensch's rule) were that individual species of Cyprinidae can have hyperallometry for SSD, but the pattern is not present across all taxa.

DOI
10.2307/23500380
Citation Information
Mark Pyron, T. E. Pitcher and Stephen J. Jacquemin. "Evolution of Mating Systems and Sexual Size Dimorphism in North American cyprinids" Behavioral Ecology and Sociobiology Vol. 67 Iss. 5 (2013) p. 747 - 756 ISSN: 0340-5443
Available at: http://works.bepress.com/stephen-jacquemin/21/