Summary
Adult milkweed beetles (genus Tetraopes) are shown to exhibit geographical variation in the intensity of stabilising selection on body size. This is related in both sexes to inter-locality variation in the amount of intrapopulational variability present in this character. Mean size of female beetles also varies geographically. A model of the selection process is proposed that would select against migration between locally differentiated populations and preserve the partitioning of genetic variation among these populations.
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McCauley, D. Geographic variation in body size and its relation to the mating structure of Tetraopes populations. Heredity 42, 143–148 (1979). https://doi.org/10.1038/hdy.1979.18
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/hdy.1979.18
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