If this was indeed the ancestral state, it follows that through the evolution of the clade females of different species have repeatedly and independently foregone bridging because the advantages of increasing body size (increased fecundity) were larger than the costs of losing mobility.
With increasing body size the increased muscle mass and increase of peripheral receptors also lead to an increase of the corresponding central representation fields in the cerebral cortex (motor cortex, somato-sensory cortex).
Tooth length scales isometrically with increasing body size (slope = 1.02).
The rule also explains how the cuttlefish display system maintains a steady functionality despite the animal's continuously increasing body size.
However, this is likely due to a phenotypic decrease of relative Umax with increasing body size.
Activities of MDH, CS and SOD decreased with increasing body size (metabolic scaling effect).
"If Siamogale melilutra was not smart enough to figure out tools, perhaps the only option left was to develop more powerful jaws by increasing body size," Wang added.
Increasing body size, a trend that is clearly apparent throughout primate evolution, would have been associated with the adoption of supplementary sources of food.
Lambert and colleagues think that large predators may have partially driven these trends, particularly increasing body size in prey animals (the bigger you are, the less likely you are to fall victim to predators).
This may be related to either increasing body size and development of dentition resulting in greater crushing power or the bream may have learnt over time to crush the pellets more effectively.
Nocturnal pulses are initiated at least in part by increasing body size, which may cause an increase in the secretion of leptin (from the Greek leptos, meaning "thin"; a protein hormone important for regulation of reproduction, metabolism, and body weight), which in turn stimulates the secretion of GnRH.
