Allometric influence on phenotypic variation in the Song Sparrow (Melospiza melodia)

Abstract

Song Sparrow (Melospiza melodia) populations found along the Pacific Coast of North America, from Baja California to the islands off the coast of Alaska, exhibit extensive morphological variation. With a multivariate analysis of size and shape, I describe a portion of this pattern and examine how it could be maintained despite gene flow among the populations. Because shape differences fall along geographic barriers, I suggest that similarities among Song Sparrow populations in multivariate shape reflect their pattern of genetic relatedness. A general pattern of Song Sparrow post-nestling growth allometry has been discovered: bill characteristics are positively allometric and all other characteristics are negatively allometric. In contrast to shape, multivariate patterns of body size variation do not correspond to geographic relationships. In combination with evidence of Song Sparrow phenotypic plasticity, it is proposed that multivariate body size is an environmentally plastic trait and that specific traits exhibit levels of phenotypic plasticity in proportion to their rate of growth with respect to body size. In this way local environmental factors which alter body size may change an entire suite of allometrically related traits and thus create striking patterns of morphological variation.