Sexual showiness and parasite load: correlations without parasite coevolutionary cycles

Hamilton & Zuk (1982, Science 218, 384-387.) produced a model of sexual selection in which coevolutionary cycles of host and parasites generate consistently positive correlations between parent and offspring viability, and that animals choose mates for genetic disease resistance by scrutinizing characters whose full expression is dependent on health and vigour. They predicted a positive correlation between sexual showiness and parasite burden across species, and a negative correlation within a species. First, recent suggestions that interspecific correlations in the opposite direction to that indicated above are consistent with the mechanisms of Hamilton & Zuk's model are discussed. Second, it is shown that the model's predictions can be produced by heritable variation maintained by non-parasite fluctuating selection. In this case, the parasites associated with degree of sexual showiness are those able to amplify any initial heritable differences in vigour. Alternative sources of positive correlation between parent and offspring viability, which include the indirect effects of climatic change and exclude the need for host-parasite coevolutionary cycles, are also proposed.