Handicap principle implies emergence of dimorphic mating displays

Species spanning the animal kingdom have evolved extravagant and costly ornaments to attract mating partners. Zahavi's handicap principle offers an elegant explanation for this: ornaments signal individual quality, and must be costly to ensure honest signalling, making mate selection more effic...

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Bibliographic Details
Published inarXiv.org
Main Authors Clifton, Sara M, Braun, Rosemary I, Abrams, Daniel M
Format Paper Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published Ithaca Cornell University Library, arXiv.org 01.11.2016
Subjects
Biological evolution
Mathematics - Dynamical Systems
Physics - Adaptation and Self-Organizing Systems
Physics - Biological Physics
Quantitative Biology - Populations and Evolution
Signal quality
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Summary:Species spanning the animal kingdom have evolved extravagant and costly ornaments to attract mating partners. Zahavi's handicap principle offers an elegant explanation for this: ornaments signal individual quality, and must be costly to ensure honest signalling, making mate selection more efficient. Here we incorporate the assumptions of the handicap principle into a mathematical model and show that they are sufficient to explain the heretofore puzzling observation of bimodally distributed ornament sizes in a variety of species.
ISSN:2331-8422
DOI:10.48550/arxiv.1509.08158