Indirect-fitness benefits hypotheses suggest that offspring of preferred mates should exhibit greater survival or reproductive success. For example, good-genes hypotheses propose that female mating preferences are mediated by secondary sexual traits because they honestly reflect the ability to pass on genes that will enhance offspring survival or reproduction. Conversely, complementary-genes hypotheses propose that mating preferences are mediated by complementary-genes because they enhance offspring viability. While these two research traditions are not strict alternatives and both may operate simultaneously, they have never been tested together. Here we explore the multiple potential underlying factors influencing mating preference evolution in Jamaican field crickets, Gryllus assimilis. After evaluating female preferences for randomly selected males, we tested if preferred males differed from nonpreferred males in their body size, relative mass, or mate attraction signals. We then mated females to their preferred or non-preferred partners and tested offspring viability. Results revealed: (1) females preferred larger males, (2) larger females oviposited more eggs, (3) neither morphology nor mate attraction signaling explained variation in offspring viability, and (4) mating with a preferred partner did not enhance offspring viability. Overall, in our current study population, cricket mate preferences were inconsistent with complementary-genes and goodgenes hypotheses for indirect-fitness-benefits. Our current research explores whether male secondary sexual traits honestly reflect the ability to pass on genes that enhance offspring reproduction. or the attractiveness of sons in the subsequent generation (Fisher 1930; Zahavi 1975; Heywood 1989; Andersson 1994). For example, Fisher (1930) and later Zahavi (1975) posited that secondary sexual traits reflect their bearers' health and viability (good-genes). When both secondary sexual traits and female preferences are heritable, females that mate with more elaborate males (males with brighter, louder, or more complex secondary sexual traits) will produce offspring that may inherit their father's good-genes for health and viability, and their mothers' good-genes for preference, resulting in greater survival and/or reproductive success. A correlation may result between preference and viability [demonstrated by Lande (1981)]. The difficulty with these hypotheses is that continuous directional selection for elaborate traits may remove heritable variation, resulting in the elimination of the indirect benefits associated with mate preference (e.g. Falconer and Mackay 1996; Borgia 1979; Andersson 1994; but see Heywood 1989; Pomiankowski 1988). The main rationale for Hamilton and Zuk's (1982) insightful paper on mate choice was to with laboratory rearing, cricket care, egg counting and morphological measurements. We thank

No abstract

No abstract

No abstract

No abstract