skip to main content
US FlagAn official website of the United States government
dot gov icon
Official websites use .gov
A .gov website belongs to an official government organization in the United States.
https lock icon
Secure .gov websites use HTTPS
A lock ( lock ) or https:// means you've safely connected to the .gov website. Share sensitive information only on official, secure websites.


Title: The effects of age, sex, and habitat on body size and shape of the blackstripe topminnow, Fundulus notatus (Cyprinodontiformes: Fundulidae) (Rafinesque 1820): Size and Shape of the Blackstripe Topminnow
Award ID(s):
0953716
PAR ID:
10048081
Author(s) / Creator(s):
; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ;
Date Published:
Journal Name:
Biological Journal of the Linnean Society
Volume:
108
Issue:
4
ISSN:
0024-4066
Page Range / eLocation ID:
784 to 789
Format(s):
Medium: X
Sponsoring Org:
National Science Foundation
More Like this
  1. Context-dependent trait exaggeration is a major contributor to phenotypic diversity. However, the genetic modifiers instructing development across multiple contexts remain largely unknown. We use the arthropod tibia, a hotspot for segmental differentiation, as a paradigm to assess the developmental mechanisms underlying the context-dependent structural exaggeration of size and shape through nutritional plasticity, sexual dimorphism and segmental differentiation. Using an RNAseq approach in the sexually dimorphic and male-polyphenic dung beetle Digitonthophagus gazella , we find that only a small portion (3.7%) of all transcripts covary positively in expression level with trait size across contexts. However, RNAi-mediated knockdown of the conserved sex-determination gene doublesex suggests that it functions as a context-dependent master mediator of trait exaggeration in D. gazella as well as the closely related dung beetle Onthophagus taurus . Taken together, our findings suggest (i) that the gene networks associated with trait exaggeration are highly dependent on the precise developmental context, (ii) that doublesex differentially shapes morphological exaggeration depending on developmental contexts and (iii) that this context-specificity of dsx -mediated trait exaggeration may diversify rapidly. This mechanism may contribute to the resolution of conflict arising from environment-dependent antagonistic selection among sexes and divergent developmental contexts in a wide range of animals. 
    more » « less
  2. Scatterplots commonly use multiple visual channels to encode multivariate datasets. Such visualizations often use size, shape, and color as these dimensions are considered separable--dimensions represented by one channel do not significantly interfere with viewers' abilities to perceive data in another. However, recent work shows the size of marks significantly impacts color difference perceptions, leading to broader questions about the separability of these channels. In this paper, we present a series of crowdsourced experiments measuring how mark shape, size, and color influence data interpretation in multiclass scatterplots. Our results indicate that mark shape significantly influences color and size perception, and that separability among these channels functions asymmetrically: shape more strongly influences size and color perceptions in scatterplots than size and color influence shape. Models constructed from the resulting data can help designers anticipate viewer perceptions to build more effective visualizations. 
    more » « less