Data for: Sex-specific ornament evolution is a consistent feature of climatic adaptation across space and time in dragonflies

Adaptation to different climates fuels the origins and maintenance of
biodiversity. Detailing how organisms optimize fitness for their local
climate is therefore an essential goal in biology. Although we
increasingly understand how survival-related traits evolve as organisms
adapt to climatic conditions, it is unclear if organisms also optimize
traits that coordinate mating between the sexes. Here, we show that
dragonflies consistently adapt to warmer climates across space and time by
evolving less male melanin ornamentation—a mating-related trait that also
absorbs solar radiation and heats individuals above ambient temperatures.
Continent-wide macroevolutionary analyses reveal that species inhabiting
warmer climates evolve less male ornamentation. Community-science
observations across ten species indicate that populations adapt to warmer
parts of species’ ranges through microevolution of smaller male ornaments.
Observations from 2005-2019 detail that contemporary selective pressures
oppose male ornaments in warmer years; and our climate-warming projections
predict further decreases by 2070. Conversely, our analyses show that
female ornamentation responds idiosyncratically to temperature across
space and time, indicating the sexes evolve in different ways to meet the
demands of the local climate. Overall, these macro- and microevolutionary
findings demonstrate that organisms predictably optimize their
mating-related traits for the climate just as they do their
survival-related traits.