Exam 3: Sexual Selection Flashcards
Sexual selection
A type of natural selection, where members of the sexes develop strategies reproductive success. It can result in the secession acquiring distinct traits and characteristics
Mate choice
members of one sex house mates with particular features that may indicate traits important for reproductive success
Mate competition
in the competition for mates among males or females, those with certain traits succeed in getting mating partners
Mate choices
- When one individual chooses to mate with a partner who is compatible and who potentially carries good traits for survival of offspring
- Need to determine
- Need to be the same species so they use color and how they look to determine mating
- Females tend to put a lot of work into making the choices
- Males do still have some mate choice
Indicator traits
traits that are attractive are linked to “good genes” and thus may result in higher quality offspring
Sexual selection: secondary sexual traits
- Features that distinguish the sexes but are not directly related to reproduction. We have seen this before with sexual dimorphism
- Sexual swellings with females is an example
- Indicate a very clear difference with male and females
- This has been going on for a while when looking at the fossil record
- likely the result of sexual selection
Female secondary sexual traits: signs of sexual state
- If there is, then that means that males have some say as well
- 14% of primate species advertise sexual reproductivity with sexual swellings or some other visual cue
- Tend to mirror menstrual cycle
- Sexual swellings become largest (or most brightly colored) just prior to ovulation—when conception is most likely
Female genitalia: external signs of sexual state
- Take measurements of the butts
- They are thus seen as “honest signals” about fertility
- Males will mate with females at the max time of swelling
- Adult males are most attracted when swelling is at its highest
Females are affecting each other
- Female chimps will do a copulation call when mating towards the end and reduce it?
- Chimps females adjusted their calling behavior in flexible ways, potentially to avoid aggression from other females
Function of sexual swellings?
- Found primarily within multi-male social groups
- Increase mate competition among males (best male is successful)?
- May be fertility “cue” selected for by males
- Attract many males to mate with to confuse paternity to avoid infanticide? Females won’t reproduce when they’re taking care of a baby so they try to kill the babies?
Primate sexual displays
- Females and males both do it
- A number of haplorrhine primates have faces with both naked skin and red facial color
- Advertise their health status to females
- Advertise hormone levels such as testosterone to other males
Primate sexual displays - rhinopithecus (sub nosed monkey)
- The color of the mouth changes
- Reproductive male: lips swell and reddens in the mating season
- Subadult and juvenile bachelor males: the lips become paler
Sexual selection - mate competition can affect biology: sperm competition
- Sperm competition is the physical competition between the sperm of two or more individual males to fertilize the eggs of a single female
- The sperm itself can fight itself to fertilize
- Correlates with the size of the testes
- Part of the competition is becoming faster
There’s a difference in sperm speed depending on the primate
- Gorillas are the slowest
- -One male multiple female social organization
- Chimps and macaques are the fastest
- -Multi male multi female social organization
- Humans are between
Sperm speed
- the first ones to make it to the egg succeeds
- Faster speed in multi-male, multi-female social groups. —More potential competition among males here
- Sperm competition: tested/body weight
- Correlates with the number of males a female mates with
- Suggests that we came more from a monogamous
- At any given body size, males have larger testes (more sperm) in species where females mate with multiple males
- Human values link to smaller groups with fewer or only one male mating