Abstract: From late March to early July 2010, a total of 680 Fejervarya limnocharis individuals from a population in Fuyang of Zhejiang (East China) were collected to study the sexual dimorphism of the adults and juveniles in body size and other morphological traits. In the meantime, independent samples of adult females (n=29) were anatomized to examine the relationship between fecundity (clutch size) and maternal body size. Thirteen pairs of frogs were measured to examine the relationship of body size between paired individuals. Among the individuals collected, the smallest snout-urostyle length (SUL) of sexually matured females and males were 33 mm and 30 mm, respectively. Adult males (n=310) outnumbered adult females (n=219), whereas juvenile males (n=87) and females (n=64) did not differ significantly from equality. The increasing rates of head length, head width, fore-limb length, and hind-limb length with SUL did not differ between the sexes, whereas those of eye diameter and body mass increased with SUL differed between the sexes. The mean SUL was significantly greater for adult females than for adult males. When removing the influence of variation in SUL, we found that all other examined morphological traits except eye diameter were significantly greater for adult females than for adult males. In juveniles, the mean body mass was greater for females than for males of the same SUL, whereas other examined morphological traits all did not differ between the sexes. Clutch size was positively correlated with maternal SUL. In paired frogs, female SUL was not correlated with male SUL, and adult males were smaller than adult females. Such a pattern of sexual size dimorphism presumably resulted from the relatively weak driving force for increased body size in males and, on the other hand, from the relatively strong driving force for increased body size in females where there was a positive correlation between reproductive output and body size. Sexual dimorphism in body mass could be detected in juveniles, whereas other examined morphological traits were sexually dimorphic only in adults.

Key words: Grassland landscape, Landscape pattern, Biodiversity, Landscape degradation and restoration, Landscape aesthetic value