Loss of paired weapons leads to larger testes and a lighter load for dispersal

Reproduction is often costly for males, as it may require the growth of structural traits that aid in dispersal to find females, competition over mating opportunities, and ejaculate production. The growth of such traits can be energetically demanding, and these demands often arise concurrently during development. As such, these traits may be especially prone to resource allocation trade‐offs. Yet, such traits are rarely studied in tandem. We designed a study to improve understanding of investment dynamics in flight muscle, a dispersal trait; a sexually selected weapon used in mate competition; and testes used for sperm production. We used the leaf‐footed cactus bug, Narnia femorata (Hemiptera: Coreidae), a species where males use their hindleg as weapons to compete for matings. Males can naturally drop their limbs, and when hindlegs are lost during development, adult males do not grow a weapon. Existing studies have revealed that testes growth increases when investment in weapons ceases..., , # Loss of paired weapons leads to larger testes and a lighter load for dispersal

**Data column descriptions; Manuscript_Data.csv:**

* ID: Integer; Unique numerical identifier of each insect in the study
* Fam: String; Identified the parental pair of each individual, for inclusion in linear mixed models as a random effect
* MaleName: String; Unique string identifier of each insect in the study, including in order the project identifier (TMA), development order in clutch, Parental pair identifier, and alphabetical clutch identifier
* Soft: Bool; Identifies whether the individual exhibited a phenotype of small, soft, and highly melanated cuticle during rearing
* LookupName: String; Lookup value identifying the treatment of each individual. Individuals either \"No Autotomy\", \"Single Autotomy\", or \"Double Autotomy\"
* PronotumWidth: Decimal; Pronotum width of each individual in millimeters
* BodyMass: Decimal; Body mass of each individual in milligrams, does not include mass of testes...,