| Publication Type: | Journal Article |
| Year of Publication: | 1987 |
| Authors: | Koenig, WD |
| Journal: | The Auk |
| Volume: | 104 |
| Issue: | 4 |
| Date Published: | 1987 |
| ISBN Number: | 00048038 |
| Keywords: | Melanerpes, Picidae, Picoides |
| Abstract: | There are diverse relations among ecological, morphological, and life-history traits in North American woodpeckers (family Picidae). Within the family as a whole, clutch size does not correlate with body size. However, clutch size increases with body size within the genus Melanerpes and decreases with size in Picoides. In the family as a whole, species that specialize on wood-boring larvae have small clutches. Such species use pecking as a major foraging technique, and pecking is associated with a wide suite of morphological specializations, including relatively wide first ribs, long pygostyle disks, short tibia, wide crania, wide maxillae, long mandibular symphyses, less cranial kinesis, and greater culmen sexual dimorphism. Hence, these morphological characters also correlate with clutch size, in two cases (length of the mandibular symphysis and cranial kinesis) even after controlling for both body size and generic effects. The observed correlations between clutch size and morphology are probably the result of dietary influences. These correlations, however, may at least in part be due to morphological constraints. Morphological design may thus constrain life-history evolution at the intrafamilial and intrageneric levels as well as at higher taxonomic levels. |
| URL: | http://www.jstor.org/stable/4087289 |
| Short Title: | The Auk |
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