Meeting Abstract
Ecological and evolutionary processes depend on individual fitness. Oftentimes, organismal performance is a more accurate predictor of individual fitness than morphology. Recent work has shown that organismal performance, such as feeding performance in fishes, can sometimes be estimated from morphology. Here we test whether morphological proxies can predict jumping performance across 167 individuals from 29 species of frogs. First, we used biological and physical principles to mathematically derive three anatomical proxies for three aspects of jumping performance: jumping velocity, energy, and power. These anatomical proxies use non-invasive anatomical measurements such as the hip length, leg length, body size, and mass of frogs to estimate jumping performance. Second, we used phylogenetically generalized least squares and ordinary least squares regression to assess the precision with which these anatomical proxies allow us to predict jumping performance across the morphological, ecological, and geographical diversity represented in our interspecific dataset. Preliminary analyses indicate that we are reasonably able to estimate all three aspects of jumping performance. The ability to predict jumping performance from morphology (e.g. using museum specimens) allows the rapid sampling of many individuals. Therefore, relative to traditional laboratory methods, this new method enables us to more easily collect the large sample sizes necessary to test different macroevolutionary-level hypotheses regarding the jumping performance of anurans, and possibly other jumping animals.
