Evolutionary rates of secondary sexual and non-sexual characters among birds |
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Authors: | José Javier Cuervo Anders Pape Møller |
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Institution: | (1) Estación Experimental de Zonas áridas, Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas, Calle General Segúra 1, E-04001 Almería, Spain;(2) Laboratoire d'Ecologie, CNRS URA 258, Université Pierre et Marie Curie, Bat. A, 7'ème étage, 7 quai St. Bernard, F-75252 Paris Cedex 5, France |
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Abstract: | The rate of evolutionary morphological change in secondary sexual characters among species has traditionally been assumed
to exceed that for non-sexual characters, giving rise to a larger degree of divergence. We used a large data set of independent
evolutionary events of exaggerated secondary sexual feather characters across all birds to test whether that was the case.
Comparative analyses revealed that secondary sexual tail feather characters diverged more than wing feathers in females, and
we also found that secondary sexual head feather characters diverged more than tarsi in males, when only including intra-order
comparisons in the analyses. These results are in the predicted direction, with secondary sexual characters diverging more
than ordinary morphological traits, partially supporting the general impression that secondary sexual characters are more
variable among species than ordinary morphological characters. However, the degree of divergence among secondary sexual characters
was generally not much larger than that among ordinary characters. Some non-significant differences in divergence between
secondary sexual characters and ordinary characters could be explained by the cost-reducing function of ordinary morphological
traits. There was no evidence of significant differences in divergence between sexes for secondary sexual characters, maybe
because of genetic correlations in morphology between the sexes. However, male tarsi diverged more than female tarsi, and
sexual selection might play a role in this difference in divergence.
This revised version was published online in July 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date. |
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Keywords: | feathers rate of evolution sexual selection speciation |
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