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Abstract：
Animal genitalia are thought to evolve rapidly and divergently in response to sexual selection. Studies of genital evolution have focused largely on male genitalia. The paucity of work on female genital morphology is probably due to problems faced in quantifying shape variation, due to their composition and accessibility. Here we use a combination of micro-computed tomography, landmark free shape quantification and phylogenetic analysis to quantify the rate of female genital shape evolution among 29 species of Antichiropus millipedes, and their coevolution with male genitalia. We found significant variation in female and male genital shape among species. Male genital shape showed a stronger phylogenetic signal than female genital shape, although the phylogenetic signal effect sizes did not differ significantly. Male genital shape was found to be evolving 1.2 times faster than female genital shape. Female and male genital shape exhibited strong correlated evolution, indicating that genital shape changes in one sex are associated with corresponding changes in the genital shape of the other sex. This study adds novel insight into our growing understanding of how female genitalia can evolve rapidly and divergently, and highlights the advantages of three-dimensional techniques and multivariate analyses in studies of female genital evolution.
摘要：
动物生殖器被认为是对性选择的反应迅速而分散地进化。生殖器进化的研究主要集中在男性生殖器上。关于女性生殖器形态的工作很少可能是由于在量化形状变化方面面临的问题，由于它们的组成和可及性。在这里，我们使用微型计算机断层扫描的组合，地标自由形状量化和系统发育分析，以量化29种Antichiropusmillipedes的女性生殖器形状进化率，以及它们与男性生殖器的共同进化。我们发现物种之间的女性和男性生殖器形状存在显着差异。男性生殖器形状表现出比女性生殖器形状更强的系统发育信号，尽管系统发育信号效应大小没有显着差异。发现男性生殖器形状的演变速度是女性生殖器形状的1.2倍。女性和男性生殖器形状表现出强烈的相关进化，表明一个性别的生殖器形状变化与另一个性别的生殖器形状的相应变化有关。这项研究为我们对女性生殖器如何快速和不同地进化的理解增加了新的见解，并强调了三维技术和多变量分析在女性生殖器进化研究中的优势。
