Search results
Results from the WOW.Com Content Network
This is an example of indirect genetic benefits received by the choosy sex, because mating with such individuals will result in high-quality offspring. The indicator traits hypothesis is split into three highly related subtopics: the handicap theory of sexual selection, the good genes hypothesis, and the Hamilton–Zuk hypothesis.
This occurs because the species is more focused on survival than on reproduction, causing a shift into a less ornate state. [dubious – discuss] Consequently, sexual dimorphism has important ramifications for conservation. However, sexual dimorphism is not only found in birds and is thus important to the conservation of many animals.
Most organisms that create their offspring using sexual reproduction have two common sexes and a few less common intersex variations. In some species, there are hermaphrodites, i.e., individuals that can function reproductively as either female or male. [2] There are also some species in which only one sex is present, temporarily or permanently.
Elephants can use their ears as threat displays in male-to-male competition. Sexual selection in mammals is a process the study of which started with Charles Darwin's observations concerning sexual selection, including sexual selection in humans, and in other mammals, [1] consisting of male–male competition and mate choice that mold the development of future phenotypes in a population for a ...
Genetic incompatibility describes the process by which mating yields offspring that are nonviable, prone to disease, or genetically defective in some way. In nature, animals can ill afford to devote costly resources for little or no reward, ergo, mating strategies have evolved to allow females to choose or otherwise determine mates which are more likely to result in viable offspring.
Bateman attributed the origin of the unequal investment to the differences in the production of gametes: sperm are cheaper than eggs. A single male can easily fertilize all of a female's eggs; she will not produce more offspring by mating with more than one male. A male is capable of fathering more offspring if he mates with several females.
Animals with few offspring can devote more resources to the nurturing and protection of each individual offspring, thus reducing the need for many offspring. On the other hand, animals with many offspring may devote fewer resources to each individual offspring; for these types of animals it is common for many offspring to die soon after birth ...
Sexual selection creates colourful differences between sexes in Goldie's bird-of-paradise.Male above; female below. Painting by John Gerrard Keulemans.. Sexual selection is a mechanism of evolution in which members of one biological sex choose mates of the other sex to mate with (intersexual selection), and compete with members of the same sex for access to members of the opposite sex ...