Two thresholds, three male forms result in facultative male trimorphism in beetles.

Abstract excerpt

Male animals of many species deploy conditional reproductive strategies that contain distinct alternative phenotypes. Such facultatively expressed male tactics are assumed to be due to a single developmental threshold mechanism switching between the expression of two alternative phenotypes. However, we discovered a clade of dung beetles that commonly expresses two threshold mechanisms, resulting in three...

Topics

Share this publication in a Topic to start or enrich a Post.

• Share to Behavior, Animal
• Share to Biological Evolution
• Share to Body Size