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Natural Selection and Mating Preferences

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The principle of natural selection posits that organisms better adapted to their environment are more likely to survive and reproduce. This principle is closely intertwined with mating preferences, a key aspect of sexual selection, which evolutionary psychologists believe is driven by instincts to propagate one's genes. Such instincts significantly influence mating behaviors and preferences between genders.
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The evolution of age-specific choosiness when mating.

Olivier Cotto^1,2, Troy Day^1,2

¹Department of Mathematics and Statistics, Queens University, Kingston, ON, Canada.

Journal of Evolutionary Biology

|December 14, 2020

Summary

The strength of selection on mate choice choosiness depends on an age group's contribution to offspring, not directly on fitness at that age. This provides new insights into the evolution of choosiness across life stages.

Keywords:

assortative mating life history senescence sexual selection theory

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Area of Science:

Evolutionary biology
Behavioral ecology
Genetics

Background:

Mate choice and choosiness are central to evolutionary processes.
Mating preferences and choosiness often exhibit age-specific patterns.
The evolutionary drivers of age-specific choosiness are complex and can arise from multiple mechanisms.

Purpose of the Study:

To investigate how the strength of selection on choosiness varies with the age of expression.
To move beyond optimal strategy models and explore general principles of selection on choosiness modifiers.
To understand the evolutionary forces shaping age-dependent mate choice.

Main Methods:

Theoretical modeling of selection on modifiers of choosiness.
Analysis of how selection strength depends on age-specific reproductive contribution.
Examination of mutation-selection balance at the choosiness locus.
Illustration using contrasting life-history examples.

Main Results:

The strength of selection on a choosiness modifier at a specific age is determined by that age class's contribution to the offspring pool.
Selection on choosiness is not directly dependent on the strength of selection on fitness components at the affected age.
Mutation-selection balance can significantly influence age-specific choosiness patterns.

Conclusions:

Selection on choosiness evolves based on reproductive output across age classes.
Provides a new framework for understanding the evolution of age-dependent mate choice.
Offers insights into the evolution of reproductive isolation and mate selection strategies throughout life.