TY - JOUR

T1 - Sexual Dichromatism Drives Diversification within a Major Radiation of African Amphibians

AU - Portik, Daniel M.

AU - Bell, Rayna C.

AU - Blackburn, David C.

AU - Bauer, Aaron M.

AU - Barratt, Christopher D.

AU - Branch, William R.

AU - Burger, Marius

AU - Channing, Alan

AU - Colston, Timothy J.

AU - Conradie, Werner

AU - Maximilian Dehling, J.

AU - Drewes, Robert C.

AU - Ernst, Raffael

AU - Greenbaum, Eli

AU - Gvozdik, Vaclav

AU - Harvey, James

AU - Hillers, Annika

AU - Hirschfeld, Mareike

AU - Jongsma, Gregory F.M.

AU - Kielgast, Jos

AU - Kouete, Marcel T.

AU - Lawson, Lucinda P.

AU - Leaché, Adam D.

AU - Loader, Simon P.

AU - Lötters, Stefan

AU - Meijden, Arie Van Der

AU - Menegon, Michele

AU - Müller, Susanne

AU - Nagy, Zoltán T.

AU - Ofori-Boateng, Caleb

AU - Ohler, Annemarie

AU - Papenfuss, Theodore J.

AU - Rößler, Daniela

AU - Sinsch, Ulrich

AU - Rödel, Mark Oliver

AU - Veith, Michael

AU - Vindum, Jens

AU - Zassi-Boulou, Ange Ghislain

AU - McGuire, Jimmy A.

PY - 2019/11/1

Y1 - 2019/11/1

N2 - Theory predicts that sexually dimorphic traits under strong sexual selection, particularly those involved with intersexual signaling, can accelerate speciation and produce bursts of diversification. Sexual dichromatism (sexual dimorphism in color) is widely used as a proxy for sexual selection and is associated with rapid diversification in several animal groups, yet studies using phylogenetic comparative methods to explicitly test for an association between sexual dichromatism and diversification have produced conflicting results. Sexual dichromatism is rare in frogs, but it is both striking and prevalent in African reed frogs, a major component of the diverse frog radiation termed Afrobatrachia. In contrast to most other vertebrates, reed frogs display female-biased dichromatism in which females undergo color transformation, often resulting in more ornate coloration in females than in males. We produce a robust phylogeny of Afrobatrachia to investigate the evolutionary origins of sexual dichromatism in this radiation and examine whether the presence of dichromatism is associated with increased rates of net diversification. We find that sexual dichromatism evolved once within hyperoliids and was followed by numerous independent reversals to monochromatism. We detect significant diversification rate heterogeneity in Afrobatrachia and find that sexually dichromatic lineages have double the average net diversification rate of monochromatic lineages. By conducting trait simulations on our empirical phylogeny, we demonstrate that our inference of trait-dependent diversification is robust. Although sexual dichromatism in hyperoliid frogs is linked to their rapid diversification and supports macroevolutionary predictions of speciation by sexual selection, the function of dichromatism in reed frogs remains unclear. We propose that reed frogs are a compelling system for studying the roles of natural and sexual selection on the evolution of sexual dichromatism across micro-and macroevolutionary timescales.

AB - Theory predicts that sexually dimorphic traits under strong sexual selection, particularly those involved with intersexual signaling, can accelerate speciation and produce bursts of diversification. Sexual dichromatism (sexual dimorphism in color) is widely used as a proxy for sexual selection and is associated with rapid diversification in several animal groups, yet studies using phylogenetic comparative methods to explicitly test for an association between sexual dichromatism and diversification have produced conflicting results. Sexual dichromatism is rare in frogs, but it is both striking and prevalent in African reed frogs, a major component of the diverse frog radiation termed Afrobatrachia. In contrast to most other vertebrates, reed frogs display female-biased dichromatism in which females undergo color transformation, often resulting in more ornate coloration in females than in males. We produce a robust phylogeny of Afrobatrachia to investigate the evolutionary origins of sexual dichromatism in this radiation and examine whether the presence of dichromatism is associated with increased rates of net diversification. We find that sexual dichromatism evolved once within hyperoliids and was followed by numerous independent reversals to monochromatism. We detect significant diversification rate heterogeneity in Afrobatrachia and find that sexually dichromatic lineages have double the average net diversification rate of monochromatic lineages. By conducting trait simulations on our empirical phylogeny, we demonstrate that our inference of trait-dependent diversification is robust. Although sexual dichromatism in hyperoliid frogs is linked to their rapid diversification and supports macroevolutionary predictions of speciation by sexual selection, the function of dichromatism in reed frogs remains unclear. We propose that reed frogs are a compelling system for studying the roles of natural and sexual selection on the evolution of sexual dichromatism across micro-and macroevolutionary timescales.

KW - Afrobatrachia

KW - Anura

KW - color evolution

KW - diversification

KW - macroevolution

KW - sexual selection

U2 - 10.1093/sysbio/syz023

DO - 10.1093/sysbio/syz023

M3 - Journal article

C2 - 31140573

AN - SCOPUS:85073279354

VL - 68

SP - 859

EP - 875

JO - Systematic Biology

JF - Systematic Biology

SN - 1063-5157

IS - 6

ER -