The big and small of it: How body size evolves

Bernstein, Robin M.

doi:10.1002/ajpa.21440

Cited by 27 publications

(12 citation statements)

References 211 publications

(202 reference statements)

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“…In addition, Ringsby et al (2015) showed, in house sparrows, that selection for increased body size led to a reduction in mean telomere length. The existence of a negative body size-telomere length relationship is consistent with the pattern often observed within populations that larger individuals tend to live less long (Bartke, 2012;Bernstein, 2010;Miller, Harper, Galecki, & Burke, 2002), given that shorter telomeres at the end of development are associated with reduced longevity (Boonekamp, Mulder, Salomons, Dijkstra, & Verhulst, 2014;Heidinger et al, 2012).…”

supporting

confidence: 86%

Brood size moderates associations between relative size, telomere length, and immune development in European starling nestlings

Nettle

Andrews

Reichert

et al. 2016

Ecology and Evolution

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For young birds in a nest, body size may have implications for other aspects of development such as telomere length and immune function. However, it is possible to predict associations in either direction. On the one hand, there may be trade‐offs between growth and telomere maintenance, and growth and investment in immune function, suggesting there will be negative correlations. On the other hand, relatively larger individuals might be advantaged in competition with their nest‐mates, allowing them to garner more resources overall, leading to positive correlations. We studied development over the nestling period in 34 nests of wild European starlings, Sturnus vulgaris. Intrabrood competition is typically more intense in larger broods. Hence, we predicted that body size should become an increasingly positive predictor of telomere length and immune functioning as brood size increases. In partial support of our prediction, there were significant interactions between brood size and body size in predicting both erythrocyte telomere length change and plasma levels of the cytokine interleukin‐6. The associations between body size and these outcomes went from negative in the smallest broods to positive in the largest. A further immune marker, high‐sensitivity C‐reactive protein, showed no systematic patterning with body size or brood size. Our results confirm that the size to which a nestling grows is important for telomere dynamics and the development of the immune system, but the phenotypic associations are moderated by the competitive context.

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supporting

confidence: 86%

Brood size moderates associations between relative size, telomere length, and immune development in European starling nestlings

Nettle

Andrews

Reichert

et al. 2016

Ecology and Evolution

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“…Size variation within species is known to be highly polygenic and involve multiple physiological systems 38–40 and genes, including GH, IGF1, leptin, and ubx 41–44 . While the Q/R variation at position 156 of the MC4R does not have a monogenic effect on size determination, given the existence of the Q156 allele of the receptor in mammals and the existence of the R156 allele in the larger odontocetes, we nonetheless observed that EC 50 values for the 17 non-redundant cetacean MC4Rs were significantly correlated with both body length and body weight (Fig.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Functional variants of the melanocortin-4 receptor associated with the Odontoceti and Mysticeti suborders of cetaceans

Zhao

Zhou

Rokas

et al. 2017

Sci Rep

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Cetaceans, a group of mammals adapted to the aquatic environment that descended from terrestrial artiodactyls, exhibit tremendous interspecific differences in a number of phenotypes, including feeding behavior, such as filter feeding in the Mysticeti vs prey-hunting Odontoceti, and size, with the smallest cetacean, the vaquita, at 1.4 meters and the largest, the blue whale, reaching 33 meters. The Melanocortin-4 receptor (MC4R) regulates food intake, energy balance, and somatic growth in both mammals and teleosts. In this study, we examined allelic variants of the MC4R in cetaceans. We sequenced the MC4R from 20 cetaceans, and pharmacologically characterized 17 of these protein products. Results identified a single variation at amino acid 156 in the MC4R from representative species of major cetacean lineages uniquely associated with the toothed whales or Odontoceti (arginine at 156) and baleen whales or Mysticeti (glutamine at 156). The Q156 receptor variant found in the larger baleen whales was functionally less responsive to its endogenous anorexigenic ligand, α-MSH. Furthermore, the R156 receptor variant showed greater constitutive activity and a higher affinity for ligand. These data suggest that the MC4R may be one gene involved in the evolution of feeding ecology, energy balance, and body size in cetaceans.

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“…Size is an obvious axis of phenotypic variation, and considerable attention has been paid to evolutionary diversification of size (e.g., Cope's rule, Bergmann's rule, Rensch's rule; Bernstein 2010). Larger individuals appear to be generally fitter, through both increased survival and mating success (Kingsolver and Pfennig 2004).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Joint Allelic Effects on Fitness and Metric Traits

McGuigan¹,

Blows²

2012

Evolution

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Theoretical explanations of empirically observed standing genetic variation, mutation, and selection suggest that many alleles must jointly affect fitness and metric traits. However, there are few direct demonstrations of the nature and extent of these pleiotropic associations. We implemented a mutation accumulation (MA) divergence experimental design in Drosophila serrata to segregate genetic variants for fitness and metric traits. By exploiting naturally occurring MA line extinctions as a measure of line-level total fitness, manipulating sexual selection, and measuring productivity we were able to demonstrate genetic covariance between fitness and standard metric traits, wing size, and shape. Larger size was associated with lower total fitness and male sexual fitness, but higher productivity. Multivariate wing shape traits, capturing major axes of wing shape variation among MA lines, evolved only in the absence of sexual selection, and to the greatest extent in lines that went extinct, indicating that mutations contributing wing shape variation also typically had deleterious effects on both total fitness and male sexual fitness. This pleiotropic covariance of metric traits with fitness will drive their evolution, and generate the appearance of selection on the metric traits even in the absence of a direct contribution to fitness. K E Y W O R D S :Drosophila serrata, productivity, sexual selection, size, viability, wing.

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The big and small of it: How body size evolves

Cited by 27 publications

References 211 publications

Brood size moderates associations between relative size, telomere length, and immune development in European starling nestlings

Brood size moderates associations between relative size, telomere length, and immune development in European starling nestlings

Functional variants of the melanocortin-4 receptor associated with the Odontoceti and Mysticeti suborders of cetaceans

Joint Allelic Effects on Fitness and Metric Traits

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