scholarly journals Variation in Human Mate Choice: Simultaneously Investigating Heritability, Parental Influence, Sexual Imprinting, and Assortative Mating

2011 ◽  
Vol 177 (5) ◽  
pp. 605-616 ◽  
Author(s):  
Brendan P. Zietsch ◽  
Karin J. H. Verweij ◽  
Andrew C. Heath ◽  
Nicholas G. Martin

2019 ◽  
Vol 9 (21) ◽  
pp. 12045-12050
Author(s):  
Emily K. Delaney ◽  
Hopi E. Hoekstra


2017 ◽  
Vol 30 (10) ◽  
pp. 1810-1820 ◽  
Author(s):  
W. M. C. Jarvis ◽  
S. M. Comeau ◽  
S. F. Colborne ◽  
B. W. Robinson


2003 ◽  
Vol 35 (2) ◽  
pp. 303-313 ◽  
Author(s):  
HAMILTON R. CORREIA

Studies of human mate choice have been based almost exclusively on stated preferences and personal advertisements, and the external validity of such studies has therefore been questioned. In the present study, reallife matings based on a large representative sample of newly wed couples in 1998 (n=66,598) were analysed according to educational assortative mating. The results demonstrate a strong educational homogamy in this national Portuguese sample. However, men tend to marry women who are slightly more educated than themselves. The results are compared with those of a modern society (US, 1940–87) and a traditional society (Kipsigis, 1952–91). Since educational attainment is strongly associated with social status and intelligence, these results are discussed in an evolutionary perspective.



2009 ◽  
Vol 44 (1) ◽  
pp. 23-40 ◽  
Author(s):  
Abraham P. Buunk ◽  
Justin H. Park ◽  
Lesley A. Duncan




2011 ◽  
Vol 278 (1718) ◽  
pp. 2604-2610 ◽  
Author(s):  
Genevieve M. Kozak ◽  
Megan L. Head ◽  
Janette W. Boughman

During sexual imprinting, offspring learn parental phenotypes and then select mates who are similar to their parents. Imprinting has been thought to contribute to the process of speciation in only a few rare cases; this is despite imprinting's potential to generate assortative mating and solve the problem of recombination in ecological speciation. If offspring imprint on parental traits under divergent selection, these traits will then be involved in both adaptation and mate preference. Such ‘magic traits’ easily generate sexual isolation and facilitate speciation. In this study, we show that imprinting occurs in two ecologically divergent stickleback species (benthics and limnetics: Gasterosteus spp.). Cross-fostered females preferred mates of their foster father's species. Furthermore, imprinting is essential for sexual isolation between species; isolation was reduced when females were raised without fathers. Daughters imprinted on father odour and colour during a critical period early in development. These traits have diverged between the species owing to differences in ecology. Therefore, we provide the first evidence that imprinting links ecological adaptation to sexual isolation between species. Our results suggest that imprinting may facilitate the evolution of sexual isolation during ecological speciation, may be especially important in cases of rapid diversification, and thus play an integral role in the generation of biodiversity.



2012 ◽  
Vol 58 (3) ◽  
pp. 475-483 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael J. Pauers ◽  
Jeffrey S. Mckinnon

Abstract Sexual selection is widely viewed as playing a central role in haplochromine cichlid speciation. Hypothetically, once divergent mate preferences evolve among populations of these fishes, reproductive isolation follows and the populations begin to behave as different species. Various studies have examined patterns of assortative mating among species and sometimes populations, but few have examined variation in directional preferences, especially among populations of the same species. We investigated mate choice behavior in two populations of Labeotropheus fuelleborni, a Lake Malawi endemic. We test whether mating preferences between populations are based on the same traits and in the same direction as preferences within populations. We examine the potential contributions of two classes of trait, color patterns and behaviors, to reproductive isolation. When females chose between either two males of their own population, or two from another, female preferences were generally similar (for the female population) across the two contexts. Mate choice patterns differed between (female) populations for a measure of color, but only modestly for male behavior. In a separate experiment we simultaneously offered females a male of their own population and a male from a different population. In these trials, females consistently preferred males from their own population, which were also the males that displayed more frequently than their opponents, but not necessarily those with color traits suggested to be most attractive in the previous experiment. Thus directional preferences for chroma and related aspects of color may be important when females are presented with males of otherwise similar phenotypes, but may play little role in mediating assortative mating among populations with substantially different color patterns. A preference for male behavior could play some role in speciation if males preferentially court same-population females, as we have observed for the populations studied herein.



2001 ◽  
Vol 61 (6) ◽  
pp. 1133-1141 ◽  
Author(s):  
R. Shine ◽  
D. O'connor ◽  
M.P. Lemaster ◽  
R.T. Mason


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