4République du Congo Theory predicts that sexually dimorphic traits under strong sexual selection, particularly those resulting in more ornate coloration in females than in males. We produce a robust phylogeny of 8 9Afrobrachia to investigate the evolutionary origins of sexual dichromatism in this radiation and 9 0 examine whether the presence of dichromatism is associated with increased rates of net 9 1 . CC-BY-NC-ND 4.0 International license It is made available under a was not peer-reviewed) is the author/funder, who has granted bioRxiv a license to display the preprint in perpetuity.The copyright holder for this preprint (which . http://dx.doi.org/10.1101/372250 doi: bioRxiv preprint first posted online Jul. 22, 2018; 5 diversification. We find that sexual dichromatism evolved once within hyperoliids and was 9 2 followed by numerous independent reversals to monochromatism. We detect significant 9 3 diversification rate heterogeneity in Afrobatrachia and find that sexually dichromatic lineages 9 4 have double the average net diversification rate of monochromatic lineages. By conducting trait 9 5 simulations on our empirical phylogeny, we demonstrate our inference of trait-dependent 9 6 diversification is robust. Although sexual dichromatism in hyperoliid frogs is linked to their 9 7 rapid diversification and supports macroevolutionary predictions of speciation by sexual 9 8 selection, the function of dichromatism in reed frogs remains unclear. We propose that reed frogs 9 9 are a compelling system for studying the roles of natural and sexual selection on the evolution of 1 0 0 sexual dichromatism across both micro-and macroevolutionary timescales.

Dorsal view of a larva of the horseshoe crab Limulus polyphemus (Chelicerata, Xiphosura) showing the paired lateral eyes and the median eyes. See Harzsch et al., Developmental Dynamics 235:2641–2655.

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