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Andrew meets Rensch: sexual size dimorphism and the inverse of Rensch’s rule in Andrew’s toad (Bufo andrewsi)

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Abstract

Variation in sexual size dimorphism (SSD) is a widespread phenomenon and is commonly attributed to variation in sex-specific patterns of selection. According to Rensch’s rule, SSD increases with increasing body size when males are the larger sex, and decreases when females are the larger sex. Using data from 17 populations of Andrew’s toad (Bufo andrewsi), we tested whether the patterns of SSD conform to Rensch’s rule. Using field experiments, we also evaluated the hypothesis that sexual selection favours large male body size and that fecundity selection favours large female body size. The results revealed that the degree of SSD increased with increasing mean size in females, consistent with the inverse of Rensch’s rule. Although experiments revealed evidence for a large-male mating advantage, selection for large male size was weak at best, and hence unlikely to be an important source of variation in SSD. However, fecundity selection favouring large females was evident, and likely to explain the observed inverse of Rensch’s rule. After correcting male and female body size for age differences, the patterns of SSD remained the same, suggesting that the intra- and interpopulational variation in SSD is not driven by sex differences in age structure. Hence, these findings suggest that the strong fecundity selection favouring large females drives the evolution of female-biased SSD in B. andrewsi, providing an explanation for the inverse of Rensch’s rule. As such, the study provides an important addition to the small body of literature that uses an intraspecific approach to demonstrate the inverse of Rensch’s rule.

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Acknowledgments

We are grateful to Shang Ling Lou, De Lu and Long Jin for their help in sampling and fieldwork, as well as to Jacquelin DeFaveri for checking the language of this manuscript. Financial support was provided by the National Natural Sciences Foundation of China (31471996, 31101633 to W.B.L.), Sichuan Province Outstanding Youth Academic Technology Leaders Program (2013JQ0016 to W.B.L.), the Innovative Team Foundation of China West Normal University (to W.B.L.) and Academy of Finland (265211 to J.M.). The reported experiments comply with the current laws of China concerning animal experimentation, and permission to collect toads was received from the Ethical Committee for Animal experiments in China.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Key Laboratory of Southwest China Wildlife Resources Conservation (Ministry of Education), China West Normal University, Nanchong, 637009, Sichuan, China

    Wen Bo Liao & Wen Chao Liu

  2. Ecological Genetics Research Unit, Department of Biosciences, University of Helsinki, P.O. Box 65, 00014, Helsinki, Finland

    Wen Bo Liao & Juha Merilä

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  1. Wen Bo Liao
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  2. Wen Chao Liu
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Correspondence to Wen Bo Liao.

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Communicated by Raoul Van Damme.

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Liao, W.B., Liu, W.C. & Merilä, J. Andrew meets Rensch: sexual size dimorphism and the inverse of Rensch’s rule in Andrew’s toad (Bufo andrewsi). Oecologia 177, 389–399 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00442-014-3147-8

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