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

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Abstract

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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Acknowledgments

Cordial thanks are due to F. Kanda and all staff members of Onnenai Visitor Center, Kushiro Shitsugen National Park, for their partial support during my stay in Kushiro, and T. Kusano for discussing on independence of data. I am indebted to T. Halliday, C. Miaud, and D. Sever for critically reviewing the manuscript. I express my gratitude for the constructive comments of an onymous reviewer, J. Malmgren, and an anonymous reviewer. Handling of S. keyserlingii is regulated by the Government of Kushiro-shi, and this study was conducted under the permission authorized by this government. This study was financially supported in part by Grants-in-Aid for Scientific Research from the Japanese Foundation for the Management of Riparian Environments, the Maeda Ippo-en Foundation (Japan), and the Akiyama Memorial Foundation (Japan) for the Promotion of Life Sciences.

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  1. Biological Institute, Faculty of Science, Niigata University, Niigata, 950-2181, Japan

    Masato Hasumi

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Appendix 1

Appendix 1

See Table 4.

Table 4 Mean measurements ± SD (range) of body mass (BM), head width (HW), tail height (TH), snout–anterior vent length (SAVL), snout–posterior vent length (SPVL), and tail length (TL) in adult males (M), aquatic-phase males (Ma), terrestrial-phase males (Mt), adult females (F), aquatic-phase female (Fa), terrestrial-phase females (Ft), unsexed individuals (U), juveniles (J), and metamorphs (N)
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Hasumi, M. Age, Body Size, and Sexual Dimorphism in Size and Shape in Salamandrella keyserlingii (Caudata: Hynobiidae). Evol Biol 37, 38–48 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11692-010-9080-9

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