Mate choice when males are in patches: optimal strategies and good rules of thumb

Hutchinson, J.; Halupka, Konrad

doi:10.1016/j.jtbi.2004.06.009

Cited by 29 publications

(17 citation statements)

References 66 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…Subsequent work has not unified these subfields. Numerous theoretical studies have now considered the details of how mate sampling impacts the expected ‘quality’ (or trait value) of chosen males (Sullivan, ; Luttbeg, ; Mazalov et al ., ; Wiegmann et al ., , ,b, ; Johnstone, ; Hutchinson & Halupka, ; Wiegmann & Angeloni, ), but these appear not to have influenced theoretical work on the coevolution of preferences and traits. Even papers that involve mate‐sampling costs (e.g.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Mate‐sampling costs and sexy sons

Kokko

Booksmythe

Jennions

2014

J of Evolutionary Biology

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Costly female mating preferences for purely Fisherian male traits (i.e. sexual ornaments that are genetically uncorrelated with inherent viability) are not expected to persist at equilibrium. The indirect benefit of producing 'sexy sons' (Fisher process) disappears: in some models, the male trait becomes fixed; in others, a range of male trait values persist, but a larger trait confers no net fitness advantage because it lowers survival. Insufficient indirect selection to counter the direct cost of producing fewer offspring means that preferences are lost. The only well-cited exception assumes biased mutation on male traits. The above findings generally assume constant direct selection against female preferences (i.e. fixed costs). We show that if mate-sampling costs are instead derived based on an explicit account of how females acquire mates, an initially costly mating preference can coevolve with a male trait so that both persist in the presence or absence of biased mutation. Our models predict that empirically detecting selection at equilibrium will be difficult, even if selection was responsible for the location of the current equilibrium. In general, it appears useful to integrate mate sampling theory with models of genetic consequences of mating preferences: being explicit about the process by which individuals select mates can alter equilibria.

show abstract

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Mate‐sampling costs and sexy sons

Kokko

Booksmythe

Jennions

2014

J of Evolutionary Biology

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…The results also provide insights into the long-standing debate on the female decision rules (strategies) in mate choice, with the two most prominent models having been the 'fixed sample search strategy' (sometimes called the 'best-of-n') and the 'fixed threshold strategy'. The latter should, in theory, outperform the former [7,13,14], but empirical studies have struggled to differentiate between the two because their predicted search behaviour patterns may appear superficially similar [10,11,14]. Here, we show that mate sampling time was sensitive to costs and variation among males (under some conditions), but not to the number of available males.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 63%

Mate sampling and choosiness in the sand goby

Lindström

Lehtonen

2013

Proc. R. Soc. B.

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

To date, mate choice studies have mostly focused on establishing which mates are chosen or how the choices are performed. Here, we combined these two approaches by empirically testing how latency to mate is affected by various search costs, variation in mate quality and female quality in the sand goby (Pomatoschistus minutus). Our results show that females adjust their mating behaviour according to the costs and benefits of the choice situation. Specifically, they mated sooner when access to males was delayed and when the presence of other females presented a mate sampling cost. We also found a positive link between size variation among potential mating partners and spawning delay in some (but not all) experimental conditions. By contrast, we did not find the number of available males or the females' own body size ('quality') to affect mating latency. Finally, female mating behaviour varied significantly between years. These findings are notable for demonstrating that (i) mate sampling time is particularly sensitive to costs and, to a lesser degree, to variation among mate candidates, (ii) females' mating behaviour is sensitive to qualitative rather than to quantitative variation in their environment, and (iii) a snapshot view may describe mate sampling behaviour unreliably.

show abstract

“…Some of the key structural properties that have been explored in the mating context include whether the sample size of available suitors is known a priori to the chooser, whether the distribution of mate quality is known or not, whether acquisition costs are imposed for each suitor that is evaluated, and whether the chooser can go back and resample a previously evaluated option that was originally rejected. For a varied set of approaches to sequential mate choice, the reader is referred to Dombrovsky and Perrin (1994), Fawcett and Johnstone (2003), Hutchinson and Halupka (2004), Jennions and Petrie (1997), Johnstone (1997), Mazalov, Perrin, and Dombrovsky (1996), Sullivan (1994), Wiegmann, Mukhopadhyay, and Real (1999), and Wiegmann, Real, Capone, and Ellner (1996). While much of the research on sequential mate choice is driven by the ''optimality'' paradigm, other approaches exist that place greater emphasis on descriptive validity.…”

Section: Sequential Mate Choicementioning

confidence: 99%

Sex differences when searching for a mate: A process‐tracing approach

Saad

Eba

Sejean

2008

Behavioral Decision Making

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Sex differences in the extent of mate search were investigated using two sequential choice processes. In Study 1, attribute search, prior to choosing a mate or rejecting two competing mates, for either a short-or long-term relationship, was explored. Men (women) seeking short-term relationships were the least (most) likely to reject both suitors. Men acquired a greater number of attributes prior to rejecting mates. The length of the relationship solely affected men's search behaviors. Study 2 utilized a nested sequential model namely participants decided how many suitors to sample prior to choosing a short-term mate, and how many attributes to acquire on each sampled suitor. Women sampled a greater number of suitors prior to choosing a mate. Biological sex was found to be a greater moderator of mate search than were three personality traits linked to search. Across both studies less information was acquired prior to rejecting versus choosing a mate.

show abstract

Mate choice when males are in patches: optimal strategies and good rules of thumb

Cited by 29 publications

References 66 publications

Mate‐sampling costs and sexy sons

Mate‐sampling costs and sexy sons

Mate sampling and choosiness in the sand goby

Sex differences when searching for a mate: A process‐tracing approach

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About