Mate choice for indirect benefits displayed by a large ornament: simulations using a neural network

A test of the critical assumption of the sensory bias model for the evolution of female mating preference using neural networks

The sensory bias model for the evolution of mating preferences states that mating preferences evolve as correlated responses to selection on nonmating behaviors sharing a common sensory system. The critical assumption is that pleiotropy creates genetic correlations that affect the response to selection. I simulated selection on populations of neural networks to test this. First, I selected for various combinations of foraging and mating preferences. Sensory bias predicts that populations with preferences for like-colored objects (red food and red mates) should evolve more readily than preferences for differently colored objects (red food and blue mates). Here, I found no evidence for sensory bias. The responses to selection on foraging and mating preferences were independent of one another. Second, I selected on foraging preferences alone and asked whether there were correlated responses for increased mating preferences for like-colored mates. Here, I found modest evidence for sensory bias. Selection for a particular foraging preference resulted in increased mating preference for similarly colored mates. However, the correlated responses were small and inconsistent. Selection on foraging preferences alone may affect initial levels of mating preferences, but these correlations did not constrain the joint evolution of foraging and mating preferences in these simulations.

Evolution of frequency-dependent mate choice: keeping up with fashion trends

The diversity of sexual traits favoured by females is enormous and, curiously, includes preferences for males with rare or novel phenotypes. We modelled the evolution of a preference for rarity that yielded two surprising results. First, a Fisherian 'sexy son' effect can boost female preferences to a frequency well above that predicted by mutation-selection balance, even if there are significant mortality costs for females. Preferences do not reach fixation, however, as they are subject to frequency-dependent selection: if choosy females are too common, then rare genotypes in one generation become common, and thus unattractive, in the offspring generation. Nevertheless, even at relatively low frequency, preferences maintain polymorphism in male traits. The second unexpected result is that the preferences can evolve to much higher frequencies if choice is hindered, such that females cannot always express their preferences. Our results emphasize the need to consider feedback where preferences determine the dynamics of male genotypes and vice versa. They also highlight the similarity between the arbitrariness of behavioural norms in models of social evolution with punishment (the so-called 'folk theorem') and the diversity of sexual traits that can be preferred simply because deviating from the norm produces unattractive offspring and is, in this sense, 'punished'.