Assortative Mating: Encounter-Network Topology and the Evolution of Attractiveness

We model a social-encounter network where linked nodes match for reproduction in a manner depending probabilistically on each node’s attractiveness. The developed model reveals that increasing either the network’s mean degree or the “choosiness” exercised during pair formation increases the strength...

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Bibliographic Details
Published inScientific reports Vol. 7; no. 1; p. 45107
Main Authors Dipple, S., Jia, T., Caraco, T., Korniss, G., Szymanski, B. K.
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published London Nature Publishing Group UK 27.03.2017
Nature Publishing Group
Subjects
631/158/1144
639/705/1042
639/705/117
639/766/530/2801
639/766/530/2804
Assortative mating
Attraction
Evolution
Humanities and Social Sciences
Males
Mapping
Mating
multidisciplinary
Nodes
Offspring
Pair bond
Population
Random variables
Science
Social organization
Topology
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Summary:We model a social-encounter network where linked nodes match for reproduction in a manner depending probabilistically on each node’s attractiveness. The developed model reveals that increasing either the network’s mean degree or the “choosiness” exercised during pair formation increases the strength of positive assortative mating. That is, we note that attractiveness is correlated among mated nodes. Their total number also increases with mean degree and selectivity during pair formation. By iterating over the model’s mapping of parents onto offspring across generations, we study the evolution of attractiveness. Selection mediated by exclusion from reproduction increases mean attractiveness, but is rapidly balanced by skew in the offspring distribution of highly attractive mated pairs.
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ISSN:2045-2322
2045-2322
DOI:10.1038/srep45107