Survey
* Your assessment is very important for improving the workof artificial intelligence, which forms the content of this project
* Your assessment is very important for improving the workof artificial intelligence, which forms the content of this project
Sexual selection essay Sexual selection is about how well adapted an organism is for finding a mate. Typically males have a greater potential reproductive and rate and females invest more in the offspring. This is due to the aisogamous nature of sexual reproduction. One theory suggests that originally sperm and egg cells were the same size but due to selection for productivity and for zygote fitness the smallest and largest gametes were selected for. This led to disruptive selection as smaller gametes were selected as this allows for larger numbers to be made per unit time and larger gametes allowed for increased zygote fitness. Due to the greater potential reproductive rate in males they are, in most cases, the ones competing for the females. However, there is more than one force at work when it comes to sexual selection. We have to consider the competition between males but also the preferences of the female, or the female choice. Competition between males, sometimes referred to as intra-sexual selection, can be direct or indirect. A prime example of direct selection can be seen by looking at elephant seals. The male elephant seals are huge in size when compared with the females. They arrive at the breeding grounds before the females and fight for the best breeding sites. In this case the bigger and stronger the elephant seal, the more likely it is he will be able to pass on his genes to the next generation. Sperm competition is competition after the sperm had been transferred to prevent the sperm of rival males from fertilizing the egg. There are many examples of this, some more extreme than others. Sperm removal is when the male scoops out previous sperm or pushes it to the side with horn like appendages to ensure that his sperm is the one most likely to fertilize the egg. Some species had evolved the ability to cement closed the female’s genitalia after copulation with a ‘copulatory plug’ to prevent competition from other males’ sperm. Males of a parasitic worm found in the intestines of rats, Moniliformes dubilis, is also able to cement the genitalia region of another male to remove competition. One more example of sperm competition is that some invertebrates produce two forms of sperm: eusperm and parasperm. Paraspem is sterile and is used to fill up the female storage organs after mating to delay the female from mating again. When discussing sexual selection the main area of focus is normally how the female chooses her mate. Fisher’s runaway theory states that there is no direct benefit to the female and that the reason females choose mates with a certain trait is because they will have sons with this trait and they in turn have a high mating success and therefore pass on more of her genes. Males will have genes for the trait and for preferring males with the trait and vice versa but the preference gene will not be expressed in males and the trait gene will not be expressed in females. This theory assumes that there is a genetic correlation between the trait and the female preference for that trait. The runaway process will only be stopped when natural selection starts to act against it and eventually equilibrium is reached between the sexual advantages of having the trait and the survival advantages of not having the trait. This explanation is not complete because it assumes that there will be a difference in female preference. There is no explanation as to the origin of this female preference; it just exists. Zahavi’s Handicap theory is that the males have such large ornaments (such as heavy antlers) because they can. They are fit enough to survive even with such a large handicap. The ornament will also be expensive to grow and so it may prove to the female that he has the ability to provide enough food for himself, and therefore perhaps for his future offspring. This theory also assumes a genetic correlation. One argument against this theory is that if ornaments are a direct result of ‘good genes’ then why does genetic variability not decline? This is not an issue because it is nowhere near as straight forward as good and bad genes. So many genes will affect the health of the male and it is not a case of one form or another. Another reason is that the males will constantly be evolving due to other forms of selection, for example, due to arms races between host and parasite or between predator and prey. This means that the gene pool will not stay constant as the organisms are constantly evolving. Also mutations will still be occurring, whether advantageous or disadvantageous. An experiment carried out in the 1990s (Petrie, 1994) suggested that there was a correlation between male attractiveness (mean area of eyespots) in peacocks and the health of their offspring. Petrie randomly paired up males and females and then raised the offspring of all the pairs under the same controlled conditions and then released them into a park. After 84 days there was a correlation between male attractiveness and the size of his offspring and after 2 years there was a considerable correlation between male attractiveness and the survival rate of his offspring. This provides good evidence that there is a link between the sexual ornaments displayed by a male and the health of his offspring suggesting that females select males as those with bigger ornaments will give her offspring a genuine genetic advantage. Male house finches display carotenoid pigmentation that varies from pale yellow to red. Colouration is deposited at the time of the annual moult. Feathers grow in daily cycles of dark feathers deposited in the day and light at night. This produces bars of growth. The carotenoids cannot be ingested and so have to be taken in by eating foods containing carotenoids. The width of the bars can be used to infer the condition of the individual, because the feathers would grow more slowly under nutritional stress. Hill and montgomerie found a positive correlation between male plumage colour and average bar width. Males that had intensely pigmented plumage also grew faster. Females prefer redder mates. Benefits offspring – better at foraging. Feed mates and offspring at rate correlated to pigmentation. Females use colour as an assessment of male superiority. A slight variation of this is the gene-parasite theory. The ornament or colour is a direct representation of his level of parasites. In other words: an advertisement to females that the male is parasite free. To prove that there is a correlation between health and ornaments (Manfred Milinski and Theo Bakker, 1990) did an experiment involving sticklebacks. When placed under white light the females preferred the reddest sticklebacks. When put under green light the females can’t tell the difference and show no preference even though the males still perform courtship dancing, showing that the main factor is the colour. Redder males had a greater mass per unit length and also lost their redness when infected with a parasite. This suggests that females may prefer redder males as it is an outward sign that they are not infected with a parasite. The final theory that I am going to discuss is called sensory exploitation, (Ryan, 1990). This is the theory that the preference for a particular trait evolved in a separate way and is therefore not directly genetically linked to the trait. For example, when the sensory system in an organism evolves this could change the female preference due to her increased ability to sense, for example, vibrations in the water. The males can then exploit the pre-existing bias, although in many cases have not yet done so. This theory assumes that the preference for the trait evolves before the trait itself. An example of this can be found by looking at water mites. These water mites detect prey though the small vibrations in the water. This implies they have evolved the ability to detect vibrations to improve their ability to find prey. Males mimic these vibrations and so females will be attracted towards the males due to their pre-existing sensory bias for vibrations in the water (Proctor, 1992). I think it is important to realise that there theories do not have to be looked at in isolation. For example, the male behaviour or ornament could have evolved due to sensory exploitation but then a positive feedback system could have been set up where Fisher’s theory might explain the upkeep of the ornament. I believe that there must be some benefit to the female’s offspring because when looking from the genes point of view this would mean more genetic material would be likely to be passed on and so there is a genetic advantage. There are also proven cases of links between health and sexual ornaments. Another area that has often been overlooked is female variation in preference. Most of the studies carried out are male focused and yet the influence of females is vast. Female preference will not be a constant parameter when looking at the co-evolution of male ornaments. One example of this is context dependent variation in mate preference, for example the presence of predators. An experiment on two populations of guppies from rivers with different intensities of predations was carried out to test this hypothesis of context dependent preference. Females from both populations preferred brightly coloured males in the absence of predators. When predators were introduced, guppies from the area of high predation decreased their level of sexual activity and preference for brightly coloured males. The behaviour of the female guppies from the area of normally low predation was unaffected by presence of a predator. This, the context dependent female preference has evolved in response to the level of threat of predation in their natural habitat, due to how costly the preference is in terms of reduced survival. Another theory is condition dependent variation in preference of females. This means that the preferences of the females will vary depending on the condition that they are in. An experiment carried out on stalk-eyed flies showed that females with large eyespans mated more frequently with males with large eyespans. However, large eyespans are positively correlated with high visual acuity and so it could be argued that this may not be due to variation in preference but rather that females with larger eyespans could distinguish between males more effectively. In a further experiment females were standardized for eyespan and maintained on diets of high quality and low quality. Those on a high quality diet showed a preference for large eyespan males, but those on a low quality diet did not, and also had reduced fecundity. This highlights a strong correlation between female fitness and mating decisions. Males will also benefit from variation in females. If mating choices are condition dependent, then males with ornaments, for example larger eyespans, will not only benefit from attracting more females to pass on genes to, but also higher quality females, as they will have a preference for large eyespans. By attracting high condition females, there will be direct benefits such as increased offspring production, if the condition has an effect on fecundity. Also there will be genetic benefits to the offspring, as it is likely that at least some of the female condition is genetically determined, and so the offspring will be more likely to survive to reproduce. We cannot treat sexual selection as different to natural selection as it doesn’t make sense unless it is in the context of natural selection. Natural selection is the key force that drives evolution and adaption and sexual selection is a manmade concept that has arisen to help us explain certain aspects of nature that at a first glance do not appear to be following the ‘rules’ of natural selection.