Mate choice ≈ Mate choice
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Mate Preferences and Their Behavioral Manifestations Open
Evolved mate preferences comprise a central causal process in Darwin's theory of sexual selection. Their powerful influences have been documented in all sexually reproducing species, including in sexual strategies in humans. This article r…
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Postmating Female Control: 20 Years of Cryptic Female Choice Open
Cryptic female choice (CFC) represents postmating intersexual selection arising from female-driven mechanisms at or after mating that bias sperm use and impact male paternity share. Although biologists began to study CFC relatively late, l…
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Cultural flies: Conformist social learning in fruitflies predicts long-lasting mate-choice traditions Open
Trendsetting flies Though once believed to be confined to humans, culture has now been demonstrated in many different animal species, from whales to parrots. Most such animals have high levels of cognition, but the basics of transmission a…
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Mechanisms of Assortative Mating in Speciation with Gene Flow: Connecting Theory and Empirical Research Open
The large body of theory on speciation with gene flow has brought to light fundamental differences in the effects of two types of mating rules on speciation: preference/trait rules, in which divergence in both (female) preferences and (mal…
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Sex‐biased dispersal: a review of the theory Open
Dispersal is ubiquitous throughout the tree of life: factors selecting for dispersal include kin competition, inbreeding avoidance and spatiotemporal variation in resources or habitat suitability. These factors differ in whether they promo…
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Sexual selection and its evolutionary consequences in female animals Open
For sexual selection to act on a given sex, there must exist variation in the reproductive success of that sex as a result of differential access to mates or fertilisations. The mechanisms and consequences of sexual selection acting on mal…
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What maintains signal honesty in animal colour displays used in mate choice? Open
Many of the colour displays of animals are proposed to have evolved in response to female mate choice for honest signals of quality, but such honest signalling requires mechanisms to prevent cheating. The most widely accepted and cited mec…
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Cues of upper body strength account for most of the variance in men's bodily attractiveness Open
Evolution equips sexually reproducing species with mate choice mechanisms that function to evaluate the reproductive consequences of mating with different individuals. Indeed, evolutionary psychologists have shown that women's mate choice …
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The total opportunity for sexual selection and the integration of pre‐ and post‐mating episodes of sexual selection in a complex world Open
It is well known that sexual selection can target reproductive traits during successive pre‐ and post‐mating episodes of selection. A key focus of recent studies has been to understand and quantify how these episodes of sexual selection in…
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Life history evolution, reproduction, and the origins of sex‐dependent aging and longevity Open
Males and females in many species differ in how they age and how long they live. These differences have motivated much research, concerning both their evolution and the underlying mechanisms that cause them. We review how differences in ma…
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Patterns of<span>MHC</span>‐dependent mate selection in humans and nonhuman primates: a meta‐analysis Open
Genes of the major histocompatibility complex ( MHC ) in vertebrates are integral for effective adaptive immune response and are associated with sexual selection. Evidence from a range of vertebrates supports MHC ‐based preference for dive…
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Do opposites attract? Effects of personality matching in breeding pairs of captive giant pandas on reproductive success Open
Successful and cost-effective conservation breeding programs rely largely on animals doing what should come naturally: mate & reproduce. Behavioral management, especially that targeting mate compatibility and choice, will be important to a…
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The relative importance of intra- and intersexual selection on human male sexually dimorphic traits Open
Recent evidence suggests that in sexual selection on human males, intrasexual competition plays a larger role than female choice. In a sample of men (N = 164), we sought to provide further evidence on the effects of men's physical dominanc…
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A global analysis of song frequency in passerines provides no support for the acoustic adaptation hypothesis but suggests a role for sexual selection Open
Animals use acoustic signals for communication, implying that the properties of these signals can be under strong selection. The acoustic adaptation hypothesis predicts that species in dense habitats emit lower‐frequency sounds than those …
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Evolution of correlated complexity in the radically different courtship signals of birds-of-paradise Open
Ornaments used in courtship often vary wildly among species, reflecting the evolutionary interplay between mate preference functions and the constraints imposed by natural selection. Consequently, understanding the evolutionary dynamics re…
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Mate preference priorities in the East and West: A cross‐cultural test of the mate preference priority model Open
Objective Mate choice involves trading‐off several preferences. Research on this process tends to examine mate preference prioritization in homogenous samples using a small number of traits and thus provide little insight into whether prio…
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The definition of sexual selection Open
Sexual selection is a key component of evolutionary biology. However, from the very formulation of sexual selection by Darwin, the nature and extent of sexual selection have been controversial. Recently, such controversy has led back to th…
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Perception and Deception: Human Beauty and the Brain Open
Human physical characteristics and their perception by the brain are under pressure by natural selection to optimize reproductive success. Men and women have different strategies to appear attractive and have different interests in identif…
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Why Monogamy? A Review of Potential Ultimate Drivers Open
The existence of monogamy in animals is perplexing from an evolutionary perspective. If individuals: (1) have the opportunity to mate with more than one individual and (2) doing so provides fitness benefits (e.g., indirect benefits, increa…
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Genetic dissection of assortative mating behavior Open
The evolution of new species is made easier when traits under divergent ecological selection are also mating cues. Such ecological mating cues are now considered more common than previously thought, but we still know little about the genet…
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Why do some animals mate with one partner rather than many?<span>A</span>review of causes and consequences of monogamy Open
Why do some animals mate with one partner rather than many? Here, I investigate factors related to ( i ) spatial constraints (habitat limitation, mate availability), ( ii ) time constraints (breeding synchrony, length of breeding season), …
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Ovarian fluid allows directional cryptic female choice despite external fertilization Open
In species with internal fertilization, females can favour certain males over others, not only before mating but also within the female’s reproductive tract after mating. Here, we ask whether such directional post-mating (that is, cryptic)…
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Marriage‐Market Constraints and Mate‐Selection Behavior: Racial, Ethnic, and Gender Differences in Intermarriage Open
Despite theoretical consensus that marriage markets constrain mate‐selection behavior, few studies directly evaluate how local marriage‐market conditions influence intermarriage patterns. Using data from the American Community Survey, the …
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Male sex pheromone components in <i>Heliconius</i> butterflies released by the androconia affect female choice Open
Sex-specific pheromones are known to play an important role in butterfly courtship, and may influence both individual reproductive success and reproductive isolation between species. Extensive ecological, behavioural and genetic studies of…
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Proximate and Ultimate Perspectives on Romantic Love Open
Romantic love is a phenomenon of immense interest to the general public as well as to scholars in several disciplines. It is known to be present in almost all human societies and has been studied from a number of perspectives. In this inte…
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Mate choice in a polluted world: consequences for individuals, populations and communities Open
Pollution (e.g. by chemicals, noise, light, heat) is an insidious consequence of anthropogenic activity that affects environments worldwide. Exposure of wildlife to pollutants has the capacity to adversely affect animal communication and b…
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Gamete-mediated mate choice: towards a more inclusive view of sexual selection Open
‘Sperm competition’—where ejaculates from two or more males compete for fertilization—and ‘cryptic female choice’—where females bias this contest to suit their reproductive interests—are now part of the everyday lexicon of sexual selection…
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Odour-based discrimination of similarity at the major histocompatibility complex in birds Open
Many animals are known to preferentially mate with partners that are dissimilar at the major histocompatibility complex (MHC) in order to maximize the antigen binding repertoire (or disease resistance) in their offspring. Although several …
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Sexual conflict drives male manipulation of female postmating responses in<i>Drosophila melanogaster</i> Open
In many animals, females respond to mating with changes in physiology and behavior that are triggered by molecules transferred by males during mating. In Drosophila melanogaster , proteins in the seminal fluid are responsible for important…
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Female brain size affects the assessment of male attractiveness during mate choice Open
Variation in brain size and cognitive ability affects mate quality assessment and underlies variation in mate choice.