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The stabilising impact of natural selection on the allometry of sexual ornaments: Fish that escape locomotor constraints exhibit extravagant ornamentation

1. Positive allometry has been considered a hallmark of sexual selection whereby larger males of superior condition develop disproportionately larger ornaments for their body size compared to smaller males of poorer condition. 2. Yet many structures known to be sexually selected often exhibit other allometric patterns. This has led to controversy over the utility of allometry in adequately capturing the signature of sexual selection, particularly if static (within population) and evolutionary (across species) allometries are functionally constrained by stabilising natural selection. 3. To investigate this, we evaluated the allometries of ornamental head crests and dorsal fins across multiple species of blenny fish. In particular, we compared species that occupied an aquatic environment— where swimming performance was expected to have constrained ornament size— with species that have transitioned onto land where such biomechanical constraints on ornament size have been removed. 4. Static allometries of both head crest and dorsal fin ornaments were found to be positive in males, but less so in females, across all species examined. This was consistent with the allometric theory of sexual selection that predicts positive allometry specifically in male ornamentation. Nevertheless, male allometric exponents were constrained in aquatic species whereas males of terrestrial species were free to exaggerate the size of their ornaments. Natural selection