Data from: Asymmetry in cross-sex cross-trait genetic covariances and the evolvability of sexual dimorphism

The evolution of sexual dimorphism is predicted to resolve conflict that
can arise from divergent evolutionary interests between sexes, enabling
each sex to reach its fitness optimum. However, most of the genome is
shared between sexes, which can lead to a genetic constraint for
dimorphism evolution. Most studies of intersexual genetic constraints have
focused on the effect of genetic correlations, rmf, for single traits.
However, multivariate studies of the B-matrix of intersexual genetic
covariances suggest that sexual dimorphism may be more evolvable than
inferred from rmf because of the potential for indirect responses
to selection from correlated traits. To comprehensively address this
question, we collected and re-analyzed published estimates of B using a
recently developed approach to quantify the evolvability of sexual
monomorphism and dimorphism. We find that across the traits and species we
study, the evolvability of dimorphism is lower than that of monomorphism,
but also that sexually concordant and antagonistic selection are almost
equally capable of producing dimorphism. We also find that asymmetry in B
would affect the response to selection more in females than in males. Our
results show that sexual dimorphism is more evolvable than studies of rmf
suggest and underscore that sexually antagonistic selection is not
required for the evolution of sexual dimorphism.