BE Second Test Deck Flashcards
define SEXUAL SELECTION
the aspect of selection favoring features that INCREASE MATING SUCCESS
relevance of Sexual Selection
- Historical development
- Mendelian Natural Selection depends on sexual reproduction
- Fisher: one mother and one father
- Darwin: Elaborate characters that DON’T contribute to survival are limited to one sex and associated w/ breeding
- designs usually come about in 2 ways:
- female choice: generally mate choice
- male success in combat: generally competition among members of same sex for mates
- Bateman’s drosophila experiments 1948 -> anisogamy
- Trivers 1972 => Parental investment
Bateman
Drosophila experiments
- equal numbers of each sex (so avg RS =)
- Greater variance in male RS: 21% of males no offspring v 4% females
- DK&W fig 7.3 (p183), # offspring v # of mates
- female RS linearly related to food
- frequency of copulations NO effect on female RS but directly predicts male RS graphic
- Differences seen to be consequence of ANISOGAMY
- Combination of two gametes that are very different
relevance of PI
Parental Investment and Sexual Selection (Trivers 1972)
- if PI higher in one sex, then the members of the other sex will compete for it
a. In general: female PI is high/male low
i. E.g. in mammals
1. Females -> eggs/gestation/lactation
2. Males -> one sperm
ii. Elephant seals – extreme difference in PI
1. Female: 650kg, 50kg baby, nurse 5 weeks it gains 100kg while mom loses 200
2. Male 2700kg, sperm 1/10,000,000,000 of a gram (ejaculate made in hours)
define parental investment
“any investment by a parent in an individual offspring which increases the offspring’s chance of survival (and RS) at the cost of the parent’s ability to invest in other offspring”
- defined by Trivers
- a fundamental tradeoff
- goes back to Lack’s clutch size
- parent/sibling conflict (somatic/reproductive investment)
- sex role reversal
relevance of coy females and flashy, ardent males
- Darwin observed anisogamy asymmetry and expected to see coy females and ardent males => so this is often assumed
- observations of primates offers empirical counter
- libidinous females, advertised estrous
mating effort/parenting effort
i. finite amount of reproductive effort can be spent either on parenting or on mating, then, from anisogamy argument
1. Expect that what generally pays MOST (so selection favors most)
a. Females => parenting effort
b. Males => mating effort
c. All genes in us (except on Y) spend half their time in bodies of the other sex.
i. Implication: Most sex differences may be norms of reaction
- links to
- ANISOGAMY model
- females parental invest because they risk a larger fraction of total investment in each offspring
- males invest in being “choosable” (ornaments/armaments)
- father effect
- ANISOGAMY model
male care significance
-original assumption: higher certainty of paternity would lead to more paternal care
- S&G (1992), paternity probability should vary with grouping pattern, found weak correlation, but better correlation w/ male-mother friendship
- male friends have higher chance at future mating
- females
- H&H and BJ
- FU/male better predictor of pair bond stability in which male care is given
- male care is actually mating investment, not parental
- link to Graded Signal Hypothesis
- tie in with father effect
graded signal definition
exaggerated swellings in primates represent the probability of ovulation
male care definition
Any increase in pre-reproductive survivorship because of male effort
graded signal hypothesis significance
- given risk of infanticide, females exert parental effort by copulating w/ many males
- swellings at peak when ovulate => dominant male most likely to mate at that time
- other males have lower, but non zero, paternity possibility
significance of “libidinous” females
As follows from Bateman’s experiments, only males appear at first to increase RS with more copulations. Counter to the often predicted “coy” behavior of females, primate females often exhibit “libidinous” behavior. Numerous ideas follow:
a. Increasing paternity chances, decrease infanticide by males
b. Parenting effort, no MI
c. Sperm competition => mating comp for males
d. DK&W sex selection chapter =>
- costs of resistance exceed cost of acquiescence
- material/direct benefits (higher likelihood of insemination, resources from males)
- genetic/indirect benefits (birds who have multi partners have more fit offspring, also the antechinus litter experiment)
significance of testes size
- Monogamous have small, no sperm comp
- polygynous sp have larger, sperm comp
sperm competition define
ejaculate from different males compete for fertilizations inside the female tract
significance of sperm competition
Possibility for 2 processes:
- competition between sperm of rival males
- cryptic female choice