Coevolution of Body Form and Reproductive Effort in Shorebirds (Aves: Charadriiformes)

摘要

In order to test for co-evolution of reproductive life history with body form, cluster analysis applied to nine skeletal measurements was used to identify three distinctive body types within the avian order Charadriiformes: a “sandpiper” type, a “gull/plover” type, and an “auk” type. Both in conventional analyses and in phylogenetically independent contrasts, the sandpiper body type was associated with increased values of a mass-adjusted measure of clutch volume and with decreased adult survival. A hypothesis that would explain the results is that increased reproductive effort characterizes charadriiform species with morphological features such as long bills and legs that render them vulnerable to predation, consistent with the hypothesis that reproductive effort represents a trade-off between current and future reproductive opportunities.