Influence of Individual Body Size on Reproductive Traits in Melanopline Grasshoppers (Orthoptera: Acrididae) (Report‪)‬

Introduction Body size is a fundamental trait of an organism that affects many aspects of its performance (Filin & Ovadia 2007, White et al. 2007). Ecologists have shown an increased interest in linkages between body-size variation and population dynamics (Uchamanski 2000, de Roos et al. 2003, Filin & Ovadia 2007, Gothard et al. 2007), with both empirical and theoretical work indicating that body-size variation has important implications for understanding insect population dynamics (Ovadia & Schmitz 2002, Ovadia et al. 2007, Filin & Ovadia 2007). Individual variation in body size can also be related to individual differences in exploitative competitive ability (Branson 2003a, Filin & Ovadia 2007). When larger adults are competitively superior, they should acquire more resources and have greater reproduction (Wall & Begon 1987, Belovsky et al. 1996). Filin and Ovadia (2007) argued that if later-maturing females were smaller, the poorer quality resources typically available later in the growing season should magnify size-based differences in reproduction (also see Belovsky & Slade 1995, Oedekoven & Joern 2000).