200 million years of anuran body size evolution in relation to geography, ecology, and life history

Surprisingly little is known about body-size evolution within the most diverse amphibian order, anurans (frogs and toads), despite known effects of body size on the physiological, ecological, and life-history traits of animals more generally. Here we examined anuran body-size evolution among 2434 species with over 200 million years of shared evolutionary history. We found clade-specific evolutionary shifts to new body-size optima along with numerous independent transitions to gigantic and miniature body sizes, despite the upper limits of anuran body size remaining quite consistent throughout the fossil record. We found a weak, positive correlation between a species’ body size and maximum latitude and elevation, including a dearth of small species at higher elevations and broader latitudinal and elevational ranges in larger anurans. Although we found modest differences in mean anuran body size among microhabitats, there was extensive overlap in the range of body sizes across microhabitat...