Embryo Selection and Mate Choice: Can ‘Honest Signals’ Be Trusted?

McCoy, Dakota E.; Haig, David

doi:10.1016/j.tree.2019.12.002

Cited by 37 publications

(44 citation statements)

References 73 publications

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“…As such, embryo competition does not offer a more refined view into post-embryo fitness than is automatically accounted for by “hard selection” on seed viability imposed in our model. Our observation that embryo competition leads to more competitive embryos rather than higher fitness plants is consistent with the claim of McCoy and Haig (2020) that Goodhart’s law – ‘When a measure becomes a target it ceases to be a good measure’ – can undermine effective embryo selection. Despite our focus on the evolution of polyembryony, these results apply broadly and suggest that verbal models predicting that selective embryo abortion could limit the mating costs of selfing in plants with mixed mating systems (e.g.…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 88%

Reproductive compensation and selection among viable embryos drive the evolution of polyembryony

Brandvain

Harkness

Pyhäjärvi

2020

Preprint

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Simple polyembryony – where a single gametophyte produces multiple embryos with different sires but the same maternal haplotype – is common in conifers, ferns, horsetails and other vascular plants. Polyembryony could be favored as a mechanism of reproductive compensation, providing a backup for inviable embryos, or as a mechanism of embryo competition and eliminating plants with low fitness, perhaps acting as a mechanism of Self-Incompatibility (SI). However as the evolution of polyembryony from monoembryony has not been modeled these long standing verbal models have not been evaluated. We develop an infinite-site, forward population genetics model to test how these factors can favor the evolution of polyembryony, and how these underlying benefits of polyembryony shape the genetic load under a range of selfing rates, dominance, and selection coefficients. We find that the benefit of reproductive compensation strongly favors the evolution of polyembryony, while the benefits of embryo competition are much weaker. Importantly, when embryo competition favors the evolution of polyembryony it increases embryo competitiveness, but does not act as an SI mechanism, as it does not effectively trade low-fitness selfed offspring for high fitness outcrossed offspring. We find that the impact of polyembryony on the genetic load depends on its function – increasing the embryo load when acting as a mechanism of embryo compensation and decreasing the embryo load when acting as a mechanism of competition.

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Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 88%

Reproductive compensation and selection among viable embryos drive the evolution of polyembryony

Brandvain

Harkness

Pyhäjärvi

2020

Preprint

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“…Our results show that pigments alone are insufficient to explain appearance, and therefore any theory of sexual selection (honest signaling or otherwise) must also explain the diversity of colorenhancing microstructures in males. Diverse microstructures in males suggest an evolutionary arms race between female preference and male appearance, which we term the "proxy treadmill" 80 . Our empirical results support past work by Fisher and others who predicted that one sex could evolve deceptive amplifiers in mate choice through an arms-race dynamic 3,81-84 .…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Microstructures amplify carotenoid plumage signals in tanagers

McCoy

Shultz

Vidoudez

et al. 2021

Sci Rep

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Brilliantly-colored birds are a model system for research into evolution and sexual selection. Red, orange, and yellow carotenoid-colored plumages have been considered honest signals of condition; however, sex differences in feather pigments and microstructures are not well understood. Here, we show that microstructures, rather than carotenoid pigments, seem to be a major driver of male–female color differences in the social, sexually-dimorphic tanager genus Ramphocelus. We comprehensively quantified feather (i) color (using spectrophotometry), (ii) pigments (using liquid chromatography–mass spectrometry (LC–MS)), and (iii) microstructures (using scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and finite-difference time-domain (FDTD) optical modeling). Males have significantly more saturated color patches than females. However, our exploratory analysis of pigments suggested that males and females have concordant carotenoid pigment profiles across all species (MCMCglmm model, female:male ratio = 0.95). Male, but not female, feathers have elaborate microstructures which amplify color appearance. Oblong, expanded feather barbs in males enhance color saturation (for the same amount of pigment) by increasing the transmission of optical power through the feather. Dihedral barbules (vertically-angled, strap-shaped barbules) in males reduce total reflectance to generate “super black” and “velvet red” plumage. Melanin in females explains some, but not all, of the male–female plumage differences. Our results suggest that a widely cited index of honesty, carotenoid pigments, cannot fully explain male appearance. We propose that males are selected to evolve amplifiers—in this case, microstructures that enhance appearance—that are not necessarily themselves linked to quality.

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“…In addition to credibility, multiple selection pressures can shape signals, including biases in the sensory systems of receivers; receiver abilities to discriminate signals; the structure of the environment; social challenges; and arms races between signalers and receivers (Krebs & Dawkins 1984), where signalers are selected to produce the signal at lower cost and receivers are selected to better discriminate the quality of signalers (Bradbury & Vehrencamp 1998;Cummings & Endler 2018;Doorn & Weissing 2006;Hill 1994;Lindsay et al 2019;McCoy & Haig 2020).…”

Section: Origins Of Music In Credible Signalingmentioning

confidence: 99%

Origins of music in credible signaling

Mehr¹,

Krasnow²,

Bryant³

et al. 2020

Preprint

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How did music evolve? We show that prevailing views on the evolution of music — that music is a byproduct of other evolved faculties, that music evolved for social bonding, and that music evolved to signal mate quality — are incomplete or wrong. We argue instead that music evolved as a credible signal in at least two contexts: coalitional interactions and infant care. We suggest that basic features of music, including melody and rhythm, result from adaptations in the proper domain of human music, providing a foundation that cultural evolution shapes into its actual domain.

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Embryo Selection and Mate Choice: Can ‘Honest Signals’ Be Trusted?

Cited by 37 publications

References 73 publications

Reproductive compensation and selection among viable embryos drive the evolution of polyembryony

Reproductive compensation and selection among viable embryos drive the evolution of polyembryony

Microstructures amplify carotenoid plumage signals in tanagers

Origins of music in credible signaling

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