The influence of sexual dimorphism in body size and mouth morphology on diet selection and sexual segregation in cervids
2000
Perez-Barberia,F.J. | Gordon,I.J.
In mammals patterns of food resource distribution influence female distribution, leading to aggregation and favouring the evolution of a polygynous mating system.Under polygyny, sexual selection favours an increase of the male body size, since larger bodies males have competitive advantage in fights for mates.Sexual body size dimorphism is thus a general rule in polygynous artiodactyls and is correlated with the degree of polygyny.Sex differences in body size lead to differences in energy requirements and food selection between the sexes.This has led to the sexual size dimorphism hypothesis being used to explain sexual segregation in ungulates, although from the available studies, it is not possible to deduce a consistent pattern between sexes in the use of forage of different abundance or quality.
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