The evolution of mate choice and the potential for conflict between species and mate–quality recognition

One of the evolutionary adaptive benefits of altruism may be that it acts as an honest (reliable) signal of men’s mate quality. In this study, 285 female participants were shown one of three video scenarios in which a male target took £30 out of a cash machine (ATM) and gave either a lot (£30), a little (£1), or nothing to a homeless man. The participants rated the male target on his attractiveness, their short- and long-term mate preferences towards him, and the degree to which they thought he was likely to possess various parenting qualities. The results showed that, regardless of whether the man was described as rich or poor, participants rated him as being more attractive when he donated money, but only when the donation was costly (£30). In addition, altruism was shown to be important in long-term, but not short-term mate choice, and displays of altruism were associated with positive parenting qualities. It is argued that displays of altruism act as a reliable (honest) mate signal for a potential long-term parental partner.

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Parental investment, mate choice, and mate quality.

Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences ◽

10.1073/pnas.74.8.3476 ◽

1977 ◽

Vol 74 (8) ◽

pp. 3476-3479 ◽

Cited By ~ 89

Author(s):

N. Burley

Keyword(s):

Mate Choice ◽

Parental Investment ◽

Mate Quality

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Mate choice copying and mate quality bias: different processes, different species

Behavioral Ecology ◽

10.1093/beheco/arp073 ◽

2009 ◽

Vol 20 (4) ◽

pp. 908-911 ◽

Cited By ~ 13

Author(s):

Antonios Vakirtzis ◽

S. Craig Roberts

Keyword(s):

Mate Choice ◽

Mate Quality ◽

Mate Choice Copying

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Beauty is in the efficient coding of the beholder

Royal Society Open Science ◽

10.1098/rsos.160027 ◽

2016 ◽

Vol 3 (3) ◽

pp. 160027 ◽

Cited By ~ 17

Author(s):

Julien P. Renoult ◽

Jeanne Bovet ◽

Michel Raymond

Keyword(s):

Mate Choice ◽

Neural Coding ◽

Perceptual Bias ◽

Natural Scenes ◽

Mate Quality ◽

Efficient Coding ◽

Sexual Ornaments ◽

General Importance ◽

Sensory Modalities ◽

Visual Bias

Sexual ornaments are often assumed to be indicators of mate quality. Yet it remains poorly known how certain ornaments are chosen before any coevolutionary race makes them indicative. Perceptual biases have been proposed to play this role, but known biases are mostly restricted to a specific taxon, which precludes evaluating their general importance in sexual selection. Here we identify a potentially universal perceptual bias in mate choice. We used an algorithm that models the sparseness of the activity of simple cells in the primary visual cortex (or V1) of humans when coding images of female faces. Sparseness was found positively correlated with attractiveness as rated by men and explained up to 17% of variance in attractiveness. Because V1 is adapted to process signals from natural scenes, in general, not faces specifically, our results indicate that attractiveness for female faces is influenced by a visual bias. Sparseness and more generally efficient neural coding are ubiquitous, occurring in various animals and sensory modalities, suggesting that the influence of efficient coding on mate choice can be widespread in animals.

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An ESS model for divorce strategies in birds

Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B Biological Sciences ◽

10.1098/rstb.1999.0374 ◽

1999 ◽

Vol 354 (1380) ◽

pp. 223-236 ◽

Cited By ~ 24

Author(s):

John M. McNamara ◽

Pär Forslund ◽

Alison Lang

Keyword(s):

Reproductive Success ◽

Mate Choice ◽

Stable Strategy ◽

Mate Quality ◽

Male And Female ◽

Baseline Case ◽

Before And After ◽

Ess Model ◽

Divorce Rates ◽

Quality Variation

We present a theoretical investigation of divorce. Arguments are couched in terms of birds, but should be applicable to other groups of organisms. We model a population in which there is a range of both male and female qualities, and decisions on whether to divorce are made by both members of a breeding pair. The reproductive success of a pair is additive in male and female qualities in the baseline case, but we also consider the effect of quality interactions. The availability of new mates depends on the divorce strategy of all population members. We allow for the possibility that mate choice is associative in quality, although we do not explicitly model the mate choice process. Using a game–theoretical model which incorporates these factors we investigate the following issues: the form of the evolutionary stable strategy, and the implications of this strategy for quality correlations in breeding pairs and for the distribution of qualities among unpaired individuals; divorce rates, reproductive success and mate quality changes over the lifetime of an individual, and the dependence of these qualtities on the individual's quality; mean population divorce rates and their dependence on costs of divorce, longevity and the extent of quality variation in the two sexes; initiators of divorce and reproductive success before and after divorce.

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