SIGNALING EFFICACY DRIVES THE EVOLUTION OF LARGER SEXUAL ORNAMENTS BY SEXUAL SELECTION

Why are there so few small secondary sexual characters? Theoretical models predict that sexual selection should lead to reduction as often as exaggeration, and yet we mainly associate secondary sexual ornaments with exaggerated features such as the peacock's tail. We review the literature on ma...

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Main Authors:	Tazzyman, Samuel J, Iwasa, Yoh, Pomiankowski, Andrew
Format:	Online
Language:	English
Published:	Wiley Periodicals, Inc. 2014
Online Access:	https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3920633/

id	pubmed-3920633
recordtype	oai_dc
spelling	pubmed-39206332014-02-19 SIGNALING EFFICACY DRIVES THE EVOLUTION OF LARGER SEXUAL ORNAMENTS BY SEXUAL SELECTION Tazzyman, Samuel J Iwasa, Yoh Pomiankowski, Andrew Original Articles Why are there so few small secondary sexual characters? Theoretical models predict that sexual selection should lead to reduction as often as exaggeration, and yet we mainly associate secondary sexual ornaments with exaggerated features such as the peacock's tail. We review the literature on mate choice experiments for evidence of reduced sexual traits. This shows that reduced ornamentation is effectively impossible in certain types of ornamental traits (behavioral, pheromonal, or color-based traits, and morphological ornaments for which the natural selection optimum is no trait), but that there are many examples of morphological traits that would permit reduction. Yet small sexual traits are very rarely seen. We analyze a simple mathematical model of Fisher's runaway process (the null model for sexual selection). Our analysis shows that the imbalance cannot be wholly explained by larger ornaments being less costly than smaller ornaments, nor by preferences for larger ornaments being less costly than preferences for smaller ornaments. Instead, we suggest that asymmetry in signaling efficacy limits runaway to trait exaggeration. Wiley Periodicals, Inc. 2014-01 2013-09-30 /pmc/articles/PMC3920633/ /pubmed/24099137 http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/evo.12255 Text en 2013 The Authors. Evolution published by Wiley Periodicals, Inc. on behalf of The Society for the Study of Evolution. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
repository_type	Open Access Journal
institution_category	Foreign Institution
institution	US National Center for Biotechnology Information
building	NCBI PubMed
collection	Online Access
language	English
format	Online
author	Tazzyman, Samuel J Iwasa, Yoh Pomiankowski, Andrew
spellingShingle	Tazzyman, Samuel J Iwasa, Yoh Pomiankowski, Andrew SIGNALING EFFICACY DRIVES THE EVOLUTION OF LARGER SEXUAL ORNAMENTS BY SEXUAL SELECTION
author_facet	Tazzyman, Samuel J Iwasa, Yoh Pomiankowski, Andrew
author_sort	Tazzyman, Samuel J
title	SIGNALING EFFICACY DRIVES THE EVOLUTION OF LARGER SEXUAL ORNAMENTS BY SEXUAL SELECTION
title_short	SIGNALING EFFICACY DRIVES THE EVOLUTION OF LARGER SEXUAL ORNAMENTS BY SEXUAL SELECTION
title_full	SIGNALING EFFICACY DRIVES THE EVOLUTION OF LARGER SEXUAL ORNAMENTS BY SEXUAL SELECTION
title_fullStr	SIGNALING EFFICACY DRIVES THE EVOLUTION OF LARGER SEXUAL ORNAMENTS BY SEXUAL SELECTION
title_full_unstemmed	SIGNALING EFFICACY DRIVES THE EVOLUTION OF LARGER SEXUAL ORNAMENTS BY SEXUAL SELECTION
title_sort	signaling efficacy drives the evolution of larger sexual ornaments by sexual selection
description	Why are there so few small secondary sexual characters? Theoretical models predict that sexual selection should lead to reduction as often as exaggeration, and yet we mainly associate secondary sexual ornaments with exaggerated features such as the peacock's tail. We review the literature on mate choice experiments for evidence of reduced sexual traits. This shows that reduced ornamentation is effectively impossible in certain types of ornamental traits (behavioral, pheromonal, or color-based traits, and morphological ornaments for which the natural selection optimum is no trait), but that there are many examples of morphological traits that would permit reduction. Yet small sexual traits are very rarely seen. We analyze a simple mathematical model of Fisher's runaway process (the null model for sexual selection). Our analysis shows that the imbalance cannot be wholly explained by larger ornaments being less costly than smaller ornaments, nor by preferences for larger ornaments being less costly than preferences for smaller ornaments. Instead, we suggest that asymmetry in signaling efficacy limits runaway to trait exaggeration.
publisher	Wiley Periodicals, Inc.
publishDate	2014
url	https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3920633/
_version_	1612057156114186240

SIGNALING EFFICACY DRIVES THE EVOLUTION OF LARGER SEXUAL ORNAMENTS BY SEXUAL SELECTION

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