Mate choice or harassment avoidance? A question of female control at the lek

Inbreeding avoidance through mate choice

Female mate choice in mammals.

Studies of mate choice in vertebrates have focused principally on birds, in which male ornaments are often highly developed, and have shown that females commonly select mates on the basis of particular phenotypic characteristics that may reflect their genetic quality. Studies of female mate choice in mammals are less highly developed and they have commonly focused on female mating preferences t...

Resource Defence or Exploded Lek? – A Question of Perspective

Mating systems involving male territorial defence are usually characterized based on categorical characteristics (Emlen & Oring 1977), for instance the number of mates per male or per female, the presence of resources within territories, the spatial distribution of neighbouring territories, whether male territories include female territories and how many, or the purpose of female visits at terr...

Female preferences in a fish genus without female mate choice

The evolution and the adaptive logic (if any) of female mate choice are subjects of lively debate. Whereas most researchers believe that females have evolved to recognize signs of male 'quality' (the ability to provide females or their offspring with direct or indirect genetic or material benefits), there is intriguing evidence that males can evolve to appeal to pre-existing female preferences....

Mate choice for non-additive genetic benefits: a resolution to the lek paradox.

In promiscuous mating systems, females often show a consistent preference to mate with one or a few males, presumably to acquire heritable genetic benefits for their offspring. However, strong directional selection should deplete additive genetic variation in fitness and consequently any benefit to expressing the preference by females (referred to as the lek paradox). Here, we provide a novel r...