Life-history Consequences of Body-size Variation in the Milkweed Leaf Beetle, Labidomera clivicollis (Coleoptera: Chrysomelidae)

AbstractAnthropogenically-driven climate warming is a hypothesized driver of animal body size reductions. Less understood are effects of other human-caused disturbances on body size, such as urbanization. We compiled 140,499 body size records of over 100 North American mammals to test how climate and human population density, a proxy for urbanization, and their interactions with species traits, impact body size. We tested three hypotheses of body size variation across urbanization gradients: urban heat island effects, habitat fragmentation, and resource availability. Our results demonstrate that both urbanization and temperature influence mammalian body size variation, most often leading to larger individuals, thus supporting the resource availability hypothesis. In addition, life history and other ecological factors play a critical role in mediating the effects of climate and urbanization on body size. Larger mammals and species that utilize thermal buffering are more sensitive to warmer temperatures, while flexibility in activity time appears to be advantageous in urbanized areas. This work highlights the value of using digitized, natural history data to track how human disturbance drives morphological variation.

Download Full-text

The role of local versus biogeographical processes in influencing diversity and body‐size variation in mammal assemblages

Ecology and Evolution ◽

10.1002/ece3.1978 ◽

2016 ◽

Vol 6 (5) ◽

pp. 1447-1456 ◽

Cited By ~ 4

Author(s):

Luiz Carlos S. Lopez ◽

Marcos S. L. Figueiredo ◽

Maria Paula de Aguiar Fracasso ◽

Daniel Oliveira Mesquita ◽

Ulisses Umbelino Anjos ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Body Size ◽

Size Variation ◽

Body Size Variation ◽

Mammal Assemblages

Download Full-text

Ecological scaling laws link individual body size variation to population abundance fluctuation

Oikos ◽

10.1111/oik.03100 ◽

2015 ◽

Vol 125 (3) ◽

pp. 288-299 ◽

Cited By ~ 4

Author(s):

Meng Xu

Keyword(s):

Body Size ◽

Scaling Laws ◽

Size Variation ◽

Population Abundance ◽

Body Size Variation ◽

Ecological Scaling ◽

Individual Body

Download Full-text

Insights into body size variation in cetaceans from the evolution of body-size-related genes

BMC Evolutionary Biology ◽

10.1186/s12862-019-1461-9 ◽

2019 ◽

Vol 19 (1) ◽

Cited By ~ 3

Author(s):

Yingying Sun ◽

Yanzhi Liu ◽

Xiaohui Sun ◽

Yurui Lin ◽

Daiqing Yin ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Body Size ◽

Size Variation ◽

Body Size Variation

Download Full-text

Geographic variation in body size and sexual size dimorphism of North American Ratsnakes (Pantherophis spp. s.l.)

Canadian Journal of Zoology ◽

10.1139/cjz-2018-0005 ◽

2018 ◽

Vol 96 (11) ◽

pp. 1196-1202 ◽

Cited By ~ 1

Author(s):

Brett A. DeGregorio ◽

Gabriel Blouin-Demers ◽

Gerardo L.F. Carfagno ◽

J. Whitfield Gibbons ◽

Stephen J. Mullin ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Body Size ◽

Large Scale ◽

Sexual Size Dimorphism ◽

Size Variation ◽

Sexually Dimorphic ◽

Male Body ◽

Complex Species ◽

Size Dimorphism ◽

Body Size Variation ◽

Female Body Size

Because body size affects nearly all facets of an organism’s life history, ecologists have long been interested in large-scale patterns of body-size variation, as well as why those large-scale patterns often differ between sexes. We explored body-size variation across the range of the sexually dimorphic Ratsnake complex (species of the genus Pantherophis Fitzinger, 1843 s.l.; formerly Elaphe obsoleta (Say in James, 1823)) in North America. We specifically explored whether variation in body size followed latitudinal patterns or varied with climatic variables. We found that body size did not conform to a climatic or latitudinal gradient, but instead, some of the populations with the largest snakes occurred near the core of the geographic range and some with the smallest occurred near the northern, western, and southern peripheries of the range. Males averaged 14% larger than females, although the degree of sexual size dimorphism varied between populations (range: 2%–25%). There was a weak trend for male body size to change in relation to temperature, whereas female body size did not. Our results indicate that relationships between climate and an ectotherm’s body size are more complicated than linear latitudinal clines and likely differ for males and females.

Download Full-text