Evolutionary allometry of sexual dimorphism of jumping performance in anurans

Sexual dimorphism is a common feature in animals, yet the degree of sexual dimorphism is not constant across taxa. Sometimes the magnitude of sexual dimorphism varies systematically with body size, resulting in evolutionary allometry of sexual dimorphism. While such patterns are commonly investigated for traits such as overall size, allometric variation in sexual dimorphism of other traits remains underexplored. Here, we characterize the evolutionary allometry of sexual dimorphism in a functional phenotypic trait (jumping performance) in anurans. Using morphology and anatomical approximations of jumping performance across 146 species, we test for evidence of the correlated selection model of sexual dimorphism evolution. We analyze patterns of evolutionary allometry of sexual dimorphism in key phenotypic traits, including: body size (snout-vent length and mass), relative leg length, relative leg muscle volume, mass-specific peak jumping energy, and peak jumping velocity. We find that as ...