scholarly journals MATE CHOICE AND HUMAN STATURE: HOMOGAMY AS A UNIFIED FRAMEWORK FOR UNDERSTANDING MATING PREFERENCES

Evolution ◽  
2010 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alexandre Courtiol ◽  
Michel Raymond ◽  
Bernard Godelle ◽  
Jean-Baptiste Ferdy
Keyword(s):  
Mate Choice ◽  
Unified Framework ◽  
Mating Preferences

Variation III: Social Environment and Epigenetics

Mate Choice ◽  
2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gil G. Rosenthal
Keyword(s):  
Mate Choice ◽  
Social Interactions ◽  
Social Environment ◽  
Sexual Maturity ◽  
Horizontal Transmission ◽  
Epigenetic Modifications ◽  
Older Individuals ◽  
Mating Preferences ◽  
Sources Of Variation ◽  
Sexually Mature

This chapter focuses on social interactions, in the broadest sense, as sources of variation in mate choice and mating preferences. These interactions can be divided into three categories corresponding to when they are specified and which individuals are involved. The first includes effects that are determined before birth and transmitted vertically from parents: epigenetic modifications to the genome and the fetal or embryonic environment. The second includes influences between birth and sexual maturity, when the phenotypes of parents and/or other sexually mature, older individuals (oblique transmission) direct the development of preferences in choosers. Experience with courters and choosers after sexual maturity, or experience with other juveniles that shapes subsequent preferences, constitutes peer (horizontal) transmission.

Variation in Preferences and Choices: General Considerations

Mate Choice ◽  
2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gil G. Rosenthal
Keyword(s):  
Mate Choice ◽  
Social Variables ◽  
Mating Preferences ◽  
Important Constraint ◽  
Underlying Mechanisms

This chapter provides an overview of variation in mating preferences, focusing on the repeatability of mate choice. Variation in mate choice and mating preferences can arise from differences within and between individuals in any of the mechanisms used to sense, perceive, and evaluate courter signals before, during, and after mating, and in the mechanisms they use to sample and choose among mates. Preferences frequently covary with traits not directly involved with mate choice. These patterns of covariation, among preferences and between preferences and other traits, may arise either from properties internal to choosers, like shared underlying mechanisms or statistically associated genetic underpinnings, or from correlations among environmental and social variables that shape preferences. These correlations represent an important constraint on the directions in which preferences can evolve.

scholarly journals Cultural flies: Conformist social learning in fruitflies predicts long-lasting mate-choice traditions

Science ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 362 (6418) ◽  
pp. 1025-1030 ◽  
Author(s):  
Etienne Danchin ◽  
Sabine Nöbel ◽  
Arnaud Pocheville ◽  
Anne-Cecile Dagaeff ◽  
Léa Demay ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Social Learning ◽  
Mate Choice ◽  
Empirical Support ◽  
Cultural Inheritance ◽  
Theoretical Justification ◽  
Mating Preferences ◽  
Transmission Chain ◽  
Definition Of ◽  
Local Traditions ◽  
Animal Culture

Despite theoretical justification for the evolution of animal culture, empirical evidence for it beyond mammals and birds remains scant, and we still know little about the process of cultural inheritance. In this study, we propose a mechanism-driven definition of animal culture and test it in the fruitfly. We found that fruitflies have five cognitive capacities that enable them to transmit mating preferences culturally across generations, potentially fostering persistent traditions (the main marker of culture) in mating preference. A transmission chain experiment validates a model of the emergence of local traditions, indicating that such social transmission may lead initially neutral traits to become adaptive, hence strongly selecting for copying and conformity. Although this situation was suggested decades ago, it previously had little empirical support.

scholarly journals Predator-induced changes of male and female mating preferences: innate and learned components

2019 ◽  
Vol 65 (3) ◽  
pp. 305-316 ◽  
Author(s):  
Martin Plath ◽  
Kai Liu ◽  
Diane Umutoni ◽  
Guilherme Gomes-Silva ◽  
Jie-Fei Wei ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Mate Choice ◽  
Genetic Basis ◽  
Learning Experience ◽  
Choice Test ◽  
Extrinsic Factors ◽  
Mating Preferences ◽  
Choice Tests ◽  
Experiential Effects ◽  
Female Mating Preferences ◽  
Induced Changes

Abstract While many mating preferences have a genetic basis, the question remains as to whether and how learning/experience can modify individual mate choice decisions. We used wild-caught (predator-experienced) and F1 laboratory-reared (predator-naïve) invasive Western mosquitofish Gambusia affinis from China to test whether mating preferences (assessed in a first mate choice test) would change under immediate predation threat. The same individuals were tested in a second mate choice test during which 1 of 3 types of animated predators was presented: 1) a co-occurring predator, 2) a co-evolved but not currently co-occurring predator, and 3) a non-piscivorous species as control. We compared preference scores derived from both mate choice tests to separate innate from experiential effects of predation. We also asked whether predator-induced changes in mating preferences would differ between sexes or depend on the choosing individual’s personality type and/or body size. Wild-caught fish altered their mate choice decisions most when exposed to the co-occurring predator whereas laboratory-reared individuals responded most to the co-evolved predator, suggesting that both innate mechanisms and learning effects are involved. This behavior likely reduces individuals’ risk of falling victim to predation by temporarily moving away from high-quality (i.e., conspicuous) mating partners. Accordingly, effects were stronger in bolder than shyer, large- compared with small-bodied, and female compared with male focal individuals, likely because those phenotypes face an increased predation risk overall. Our study adds to the growing body of literature appreciating the complexity of the mate choice process, where an array of intrinsic and extrinsic factors interacts during decision-making.

scholarly journals Conflict between direct and indirect benefits of female choice in desert Drosophila

2006 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
pp. 29-32 ◽  
Author(s):  
Elen Oneal ◽  
Tim Connallon ◽  
L Lacey Knowles
Keyword(s):  
Mate Choice ◽  
Female Choice ◽  
Desiccation Stress ◽  
Direct Benefit ◽  
Mating Preferences ◽  
Indirect Benefits ◽  
Indirect Fitness ◽  
Direct And Indirect Benefits ◽  
Opposing Effects ◽  
The Cost

Identifying the factors that contribute to the adaptive significance of mating preferences is one major goal of evolutionary research and is largely unresolved. Both direct and indirect benefits can contribute to mate choice evolution. Failure to consider the interaction between individual consequences of mate choice may obscure the opposing effects of individual costs and benefits. We investigate direct and indirect fitness effects of female choice in a desert fly ( Drosophila mojavensis ), a species where mating confers resistance to desiccation stress. Females prefer males that provide a direct benefit: greater resistance to desiccation stress. Mating preferences also appear to have indirect consequences: daughters of preferred males have lower reproductive success than daughters of unpreferred males, although additional experimentation will be needed to determine if the indirect consequences of female preferences actually arise from ‘sexually antagonistic’ variation. Nevertheless, the results are intriguing and are consistent with the hypothesis that an interaction between direct and indirect benefits maintains sexually antagonistic variation in these desert flies: increased desiccation resistance conferred by mating might offset the cost of producing low-fecundity daughters.

Mate Choice and Human Exceptionalism

Mate Choice ◽  
2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gil G. Rosenthal
Keyword(s):  
Mate Choice ◽  
Human History ◽  
Large Reservoir ◽  
Mating Preferences ◽  
Human Exceptionalism ◽  
The Social ◽  
Societal Changes ◽  
Individual Mating ◽  
Evolutionary Consequences ◽  
Reproductive Consequences

This chapter presents a biological perspective on the diversity and complexity of human mate choice. Mating preferences can change very rapidly owing to the fact that they depend on a large reservoir of standing genetic variations whose effects can be modified and reversed by environmental and social inputs. In contemporary global society, rapid technological and societal changes means that individual mating preferences have an unprecedented potential to be revealed and expressed as choices, some with reproductive consequences. Individuals now have more agency than they ever have in human history, with a greater opportunity than ever to sample potential mates. The social and evolutionary consequences are sure to be fascinating.

3. Choosing from the field of competitors

2018 ◽  
pp. 34-51
Author(s):  
Leigh W. Simmons
Keyword(s):  
Sexual Selection ◽  
Mate Choice ◽  
Animal Species ◽  
Theoretical Models ◽  
Mating Preferences ◽  
Contemporary View ◽  
Sexual Characteristics ◽  
Sexual Traits ◽  
Secondary Sexual

There is now unequivocal evidence for Darwin’s long-rejected suggestion that females choose among potential mates based on their secondary sexual traits. This has shifted attention from the question of whether females exercised mate choice, to why they should exhibit the mating preferences they do. ‘Choosing from the field of competitors’ gives a contemporary view of mate choice and its occurrence in a wide variety of animal species, along with some examples of what females are choosing and why parasites and disease may play a role in the evolution of extravagant secondary sexual characteristics. Several theoretical models are discussed along with the role of sexual selection in the evolution of humans.

scholarly journals Male fish use prior knowledge about rivals to adjust their mate choice

2011 ◽  
Vol 7 (3) ◽  
pp. 349-351 ◽  
Author(s):  
David Bierbach ◽  
Antje Girndt ◽  
Sybille Hamfler ◽  
Moritz Klein ◽  
Frauke Mücksch ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Sexual Selection ◽  
Mate Choice ◽  
Public Information ◽  
Behavioural Response ◽  
Social Cues ◽  
Sexually Active ◽  
Male Fish ◽  
Mating Preferences ◽  
Poecilia Mexicana ◽  
Livebearing Fish

Mate choice as one element of sexual selection can be sensitive to public information from neighbouring individuals. Here, we demonstrate that males of the livebearing fish Poecilia mexicana gather complex social information when given a chance to familiarize themselves with rivals prior to mate choice. Focal males ceased to show mating preferences when being observed by a rival (which prevents rivals from copying mating decisions), but this effect was only seen when focal males have perceived rivals as sexually active. In addition, focal males that were observed by a familiar, sexually active rival showed a stronger behavioural response when rivals were larger and thus, more attractive to females. Our study illustrates an unparalleled adjustment in the expression of mating preferences based on social cues, and suggests that male fish are able to remember and strategically exploit information about rivals when performing mate choice.

Modeling Mating Patterns Given Mutual Mate Choice: The Importance of Individual Mating Preferences and Mating System

2003 ◽  
Vol 11 (03) ◽  
pp. 205-219 ◽  
Author(s):  
Carmen Bessa-Gomes ◽  
Jean Clobert ◽  
Stéphane Legendre ◽  
Anders Pape Møller
Keyword(s):  
Mate Choice ◽  
Sex Ratio ◽  
Mating System ◽  
Population Biology ◽  
Structured Populations ◽  
Operational Sex Ratio ◽  
Mating Preferences ◽  
Mating Patterns ◽  
Single Sex ◽  
Individual Mating

When we consider structured populations with sexual reproduction, the distribution of characters among mating pairs may influence the population biology, namely its dynamics and genetics. In the present paper, we propose a general framework to estimate the population mating patterns taking into account individual mating preferences and mating system, thus taking into account the inter- and intra-sexual interactions such as mate competition and mate choice. According to our results, mating patterns are not a direct reflection of mating preferences, but also depend upon the average sex ratio between individuals that are ready to mate at any given time (i.e., the Operational Sex Ratio, OSR). Therefore, mating patterns should be assessed not only in function of preferences, but also of OSR. It is then possible to distinguish three OSR regions: (1) the equilibrium OSR, where there is a predominance of assortative mating patterns due to differential access to mates (inter-sexual interactions); (2) the slightly biased OSR, where there is a high diversity of mating patterns and no clear predominance of inter- or intra-sexual interactions; and (3) the highly biased OSR where there is a predominance of mating patterns corresponding to single-sex uniform preferences and an increased influence of intra-sexual interactions. We hope that this approach may allow to further explore the interaction between OSR and mate choice, namely how such interaction may affect sexual selection and mate choice tactics.

scholarly journals Is Evolution of Mating Preferences Inevitable? Random Mating in the Multisex System of Tetrahymena thermophila

2012 ◽  
Vol 2012 ◽  
pp. 1-8 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sujal S. Phadke ◽  
Lauren Cooper ◽  
Rebecca A. Zufall
Keyword(s):  
Theoretical Model ◽  
Mate Choice ◽  
Sex Ratio ◽  
Sexual Differentiation ◽  
Mating Systems ◽  
Tetrahymena Thermophila ◽  
Random Mating ◽  
Maximum Amount ◽  
Mating Preferences ◽  
Mechanistic Basis

Ciliate mating systems are highly diversified, providing unique opportunities to study sexual differentiation and its implications for mating dynamics. Many species of ciliates have multiple (>2) sexes. More sexes may mean more choice and an opportunity for evolution of preferential mating. We asked if the multiple sexes of the ciliate Tetrahymena thermophila mate preferentially among each other. We quantified pairing frequencies among four sexes of T. thermophila using experiments that allowed the sexes to compete as mating partners. We found that all sexes mated equally frequently among each other, that is, we found no evidence of preferential mating with respect to sex. This suggests that the “mate choice” in this ciliate is binary, between whether to form a pair or not and, in this regard, sex facilitates only self-/non-self-distinction. Thus, presence of multiple sexes does not necessarily result in the evolution of mating bias, which could decrease the maximum amount of mating that would otherwise be possible in a population. Our result of random mating verifies a key assumption in the theoretical model of sex ratio evolution in T. thermophila. Investigation into molecular differences between the sexes will be necessary to reveal the mechanistic basis of random mating among them.

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