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Sexually dimorphic morphology and swimming performance relationships in wild‐type zebrafish Danio rerio
Author(s) -
Conradsen C.,
McGuigan K.
Publication year - 2015
Publication title -
journal of fish biology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.672
H-Index - 115
eISSN - 1095-8649
pISSN - 0022-1112
DOI - 10.1111/jfb.12784
Subject(s) - danio , biology , sexual dimorphism , zebrafish , morphology (biology) , zoology , anatomy , evolutionary biology , genetics , gene
This study compared prolonged swimming performance ( U crit ) between male and female Danio rerio , and characterized how body shape was associated with this performance measure in each sex. When swimming in small ( n = 6) mixed‐sex groups at 28° C, males swam, on average, over 10 cm s −1 faster than females despite being significantly smaller. Body shape was sexually dimorphic, with males and females exhibiting small, but statistically significant differences in most aspects of body shape. Body shape explained 18 and 43% of the variation in U crit among males and females. In general, effects of body shape on swimming performance appeared to be sex limited, whereby different aspects of body shape affected performance in each sex, although the contribution of the distance between pelvic and anal fins to swimming performance was weakly sexually antagonistic.