{"title":"Not all size measures are created equal: different body size proxies are not equivalent fitness predictors in the bat Carollia perspicillata","authors":"","doi":"10.1007/s10914-024-09702-x","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"<h3>Abstract</h3> <p>Body size variation can have important evolutionary, physiological, functional, and ecological consequences. Body mass is a widely used size measure across different taxonomic groups, but it combines skeletal size with nutritional and reproductive status. In bats, forearm length is commonly used as a measure of skeletal size. However, body mass and forearm length are poorly correlated within species. This suggests that the two size variables are measuring different biological attributes. Here, we tested this hypothesis by evaluating the association between body mass, forearm length, and fitness components (survival and reproduction), derived from mark-recapture models, as well as their trends over a nine-year period in a population of short-tailed bats (<em>Carollia perspicillata</em>). Results showed a direct relationship between body mass, survival, and reproduction, and an inverse relationship between forearm length, survival, and reproduction. Different temporal trends in the size variables were observed according to sex and age. Males showed a trend of increasing average mass over the years. In adults, average forearm length decreased over the years, whereas juveniles showed an increasing trend. Our results showed that body mass and forearm length have distinct evolutionary dynamics and proximal mechanisms of change. Forearm length is a measure of wing size and should not be used as a proxy for body size in intraspecific studies.</p>","PeriodicalId":50158,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Mammalian Evolution","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":1.6000,"publicationDate":"2024-02-13","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Journal of Mammalian Evolution","FirstCategoryId":"99","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.1007/s10914-024-09702-x","RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"生物学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"Q2","JCRName":"ZOOLOGY","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 0
Abstract
Body size variation can have important evolutionary, physiological, functional, and ecological consequences. Body mass is a widely used size measure across different taxonomic groups, but it combines skeletal size with nutritional and reproductive status. In bats, forearm length is commonly used as a measure of skeletal size. However, body mass and forearm length are poorly correlated within species. This suggests that the two size variables are measuring different biological attributes. Here, we tested this hypothesis by evaluating the association between body mass, forearm length, and fitness components (survival and reproduction), derived from mark-recapture models, as well as their trends over a nine-year period in a population of short-tailed bats (Carollia perspicillata). Results showed a direct relationship between body mass, survival, and reproduction, and an inverse relationship between forearm length, survival, and reproduction. Different temporal trends in the size variables were observed according to sex and age. Males showed a trend of increasing average mass over the years. In adults, average forearm length decreased over the years, whereas juveniles showed an increasing trend. Our results showed that body mass and forearm length have distinct evolutionary dynamics and proximal mechanisms of change. Forearm length is a measure of wing size and should not be used as a proxy for body size in intraspecific studies.
期刊介绍:
Journal of Mammalian Evolution is a multidisciplinary forum devoted to studies on the comparative morphology, molecular biology, paleobiology, genetics, developmental and reproductive biology, biogeography, systematics, ethology and ecology, and population dynamics of mammals and the ways that these diverse data can be analyzed for the reconstruction of mammalian evolution. The journal publishes high-quality peer-reviewed original articles and reviews derived from both laboratory and field studies. The journal serves as an international forum to facilitate communication among researchers in the multiple fields that contribute to our understanding of mammalian evolutionary biology.