Skip to main content
Advertisement

Main menu

  • Home
  • Articles
    • Accepted manuscripts
    • Issue in progress
    • Latest complete issue
    • Issue archive
    • Archive by article type
    • Special issues
    • Subject collections
    • Interviews
    • Sign up for alerts
  • About us
    • About JEB
    • Editors and Board
    • Editor biographies
    • Travelling Fellowships
    • Grants and funding
    • Journal Meetings
    • Workshops
    • The Company of Biologists
    • Journal news
  • For authors
    • Submit a manuscript
    • Aims and scope
    • Presubmission enquiries
    • Article types
    • Manuscript preparation
    • Cover suggestions
    • Editorial process
    • Promoting your paper
    • Open Access
    • Outstanding paper prize
    • Biology Open transfer
  • Journal info
    • Journal policies
    • Rights and permissions
    • Media policies
    • Reviewer guide
    • Sign up for alerts
  • Contacts
    • Contact JEB
    • Subscriptions
    • Advertising
    • Feedback
    • Institutional usage stats (logged-in users only)
  • COB
    • About The Company of Biologists
    • Development
    • Journal of Cell Science
    • Journal of Experimental Biology
    • Disease Models & Mechanisms
    • Biology Open

User menu

  • Log in

Search

  • Advanced search
Journal of Experimental Biology
  • COB
    • About The Company of Biologists
    • Development
    • Journal of Cell Science
    • Journal of Experimental Biology
    • Disease Models & Mechanisms
    • Biology Open

supporting biologistsinspiring biology

Journal of Experimental Biology

  • Log in
Advanced search

RSS  Twitter  Facebook  YouTube  

  • Home
  • Articles
    • Accepted manuscripts
    • Issue in progress
    • Latest complete issue
    • Issue archive
    • Archive by article type
    • Special issues
    • Subject collections
    • Interviews
    • Sign up for alerts
  • About us
    • About JEB
    • Editors and Board
    • Editor biographies
    • Travelling Fellowships
    • Grants and funding
    • Journal Meetings
    • Workshops
    • The Company of Biologists
    • Journal news
  • For authors
    • Submit a manuscript
    • Aims and scope
    • Presubmission enquiries
    • Article types
    • Manuscript preparation
    • Cover suggestions
    • Editorial process
    • Promoting your paper
    • Open Access
    • Outstanding paper prize
    • Biology Open transfer
  • Journal info
    • Journal policies
    • Rights and permissions
    • Media policies
    • Reviewer guide
    • Sign up for alerts
  • Contacts
    • Contact JEB
    • Subscriptions
    • Advertising
    • Feedback
    • Institutional usage stats (logged-in users only)
Outside JEB
FAST FATHERS FATHER MORE
Gary B. Gillis
Journal of Experimental Biology 2007 210: vi doi: 10.1242/jeb.000794
Gary B. Gillis
  • Find this author on Google Scholar
  • Find this author on PubMed
  • Search for this author on this site
  • Article
  • Info & metrics
  • PDF
Loading

Figure1

It is widely assumed that in the animal kingdom faster means better. Speed often implies that an animal is better at escaping from predators, and capturing prey. Indeed, a growing number of studies are linking whole-organism performance traits, such as locomotor speed, to an animal's probability of survival. This suggests that natural selection acts on such traits if they are heritable, which they often seem to be. Recent work by Jerry Husak and colleagues at Oklahoma State University uses collared lizards in a novel approach to understanding the evolution of locomotor performance by addressing whether sexual selection might also shape traits such as running speed. In particular, the research team examined whether reproductive success was positively related to sprint speed in these lizards. If so, this would provide evidence that sexual selection might play a critical, if underappreciated, role in the evolution of locomotor performance in these animals.

To understand the relationship between locomotion and reproductive success, adult and yearling lizards were captured in a small region of Pawnee County, Oklahoma, USA, during the animals' breeding seasons in 2003 and 2004. Captured lizards were first brought into the lab and carefully measured for traits that could impact running speed such as body size and limb length. On days 2 and 3 of captivity, the researchers removed the lizards from their heated chambers and chased them six times along a 3-m trackway. Using video footage of the chases the team calculated the fastest one-meter split from each of the six runs for every lizard, calculating each animal's maximum sprint speed. They also collected blood samples and toe clippings from each lizard, so that they could use the DNA for paternity analyses. They targeted a number of sections, or loci, in the DNA samples to determine which adult males were most likely to be the fathers of the yearling lizards that they had also collected.

By comparing adult sprint speed with the results from the paternity tests, the team found that faster sprinters fathered more offspring. But was this caused by body size or leg length? They found that while larger lizards didn't run faster, longer limbs led to faster lizards. To try and determine what other factors might explain the fast lizards' reproductive success, the team observed the animals in their natural habitat and found that faster runners had larger territories, which could lead to more mating opportunities. They also examined blood testosterone levels to make sure that higher sprint speeds weren't caused by higher levels of this hormone. They found that there was no relationship between blood testosterone and sprint speed, offspring numbers or territory size. In fact no measured trait except maximum sprint speed predicted both reproductive success and territory size in these lizards, suggesting a direct link between running performance and fitness.

Why might faster sprint speeds lead to higher numbers of offspring in these lizards? The link between higher speeds and larger territory size hints that faster males may defend their territories better. Males with larger, better defended territories can attract more females. Faster is better indeed! As more biologists begin to consider links between performance traits and reproductive success, the relative importance of sexual versus natural selection in shaping animal form and function will become clearer.

  • © The Company of Biologists Limited 2007

References

  1. Husak, J. F., Fox, S. F., Lovern, M. B. and Van Den Bussche, R. A. (2006). Faster lizards sire more offspring: sexual selection on whole-animal performance. Evolution 60,2122 -2130.
    OpenUrlCrossRefPubMedWeb of Science
Previous ArticleNext Article
Back to top
Previous ArticleNext Article

This Issue

 Download PDF

Email

Thank you for your interest in spreading the word on Journal of Experimental Biology.

NOTE: We only request your email address so that the person you are recommending the page to knows that you wanted them to see it, and that it is not junk mail. We do not capture any email address.

Enter multiple addresses on separate lines or separate them with commas.
FAST FATHERS FATHER MORE
(Your Name) has sent you a message from Journal of Experimental Biology
(Your Name) thought you would like to see the Journal of Experimental Biology web site.
CAPTCHA
This question is for testing whether or not you are a human visitor and to prevent automated spam submissions.
Share
Outside JEB
FAST FATHERS FATHER MORE
Gary B. Gillis
Journal of Experimental Biology 2007 210: vi doi: 10.1242/jeb.000794
del.icio.us logo Digg logo Reddit logo Twitter logo CiteULike logo Facebook logo Google logo Mendeley logo
Citation Tools
Outside JEB
FAST FATHERS FATHER MORE
Gary B. Gillis
Journal of Experimental Biology 2007 210: vi doi: 10.1242/jeb.000794

Citation Manager Formats

  • BibTeX
  • Bookends
  • EasyBib
  • EndNote (tagged)
  • EndNote 8 (xml)
  • Medlars
  • Mendeley
  • Papers
  • RefWorks Tagged
  • Ref Manager
  • RIS
  • Zotero
Alerts

Please log in to add an alert for this article.

Sign in to email alerts with your email address

Article navigation

  • Top
  • Article
    • References
  • Info & metrics
  • PDF

Related articles

Cited by...

More in this TOC section

  • Gusty winds, flappy wings
  • Synthetic sunflower scent trains bees for better pollination
  • Panting zebra finches twitter to keep cool
Show more OUTSIDE JEB

Similar articles

Other journals from The Company of Biologists

Development

Journal of Cell Science

Disease Models & Mechanisms

Biology Open

Advertisement

Welcome to JEB’s new Editor Monica Daley

We are pleased to welcome Monica Daley to JEB’s Editorial team. Monica has had a long association with JEB before taking up her new role, overseeing peer review of neuromuscular physiology, terrestrial biomechanics and integrative physiology of locomotion.


In the field with Robyn Hetem

Continuing our fieldwork series, Robyn Hetem reflects on working with species ranging from aardvark to zebra, and the impact COVID-19 has had on fieldwork.


Read & Publish participation continues to grow

“It is particularly encouraging for early career researchers, as it allows them to display their research globally without the need to find costs to cover the open access option.”

Professor Fernando Montealegre-Z (University of Lincoln) shares his experience of publishing Open Access as part of our growing Read & Publish initiative. We now have over 150 institutions in 15 countries and four library consortia taking part – find out more and view our full list of participating institutions.


Nocturnal reef residents have deep-sea-like eyes

Fanny de Busserolles and colleagues from The University of Queensland have discovered that the eyes of nocturnal reef fish have multibank retinas, layers of photoreceptors, similar to the eyes of deep-sea fish that live in dim light conditions.


Mechanisms underlying gut microbiota–host interactions in insects

In their Review, Konstantin Schmidt and Philipp Engel summarise recent findings about the mechanisms involved in gut colonisation and the provisioning of beneficial effects in gut microbiota–insect symbiosis.

Articles

  • Accepted manuscripts
  • Issue in progress
  • Latest complete issue
  • Issue archive
  • Archive by article type
  • Special issues
  • Subject collections
  • Interviews
  • Sign up for alerts

About us

  • About JEB
  • Editors and Board
  • Editor biographies
  • Travelling Fellowships
  • Grants and funding
  • Journal Meetings
  • Workshops
  • The Company of Biologists
  • Journal news

For Authors

  • Submit a manuscript
  • Aims and scope
  • Presubmission enquiries
  • Article types
  • Manuscript preparation
  • Cover suggestions
  • Editorial process
  • Promoting your paper
  • Open Access
  • Outstanding paper prize
  • Biology Open transfer

Journal Info

  • Journal policies
  • Rights and permissions
  • Media policies
  • Reviewer guide
  • Sign up for alerts

Contact

  • Contact JEB
  • Subscriptions
  • Advertising
  • Feedback

 Twitter   YouTube   LinkedIn

© 2021   The Company of Biologists Ltd   Registered Charity 277992