Nineteen Years of Consistently Positive and Strong Female Mate Preferences despite Individual Variation

Ryan, Michael J.; Akre, Karin L.; Baugh, Alexander T.; Bernal, Ximena E.; Lea, Amanda M.; Leslie, Caitlin E.; Still, Meghan B.; Wylie, Dennis; Rand, A. Stanley

doi:10.1086/704103

Cited by 41 publications

(22 citation statements)

References 74 publications

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“…On the other hand, it may be that receivers can already detect novel signal components when they arise, even if the signal changes are abrupt and discontinuous (figure 2, scenario 1 boxes A,C). Some receivers may respond positively if they have perceptual biases (so-called hidden preferences) [57][58][59][60][61] or general biases for novelty.…”

Section: Novelty and The Maintenance Of Communicationmentioning

confidence: 99%

Evolutionary novelty in communication between the sexes

et al. 2021

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The diversity of signalling traits within and across taxa is vast and striking, prompting us to consider how novelty evolves in the context of animal communication. Sexual selection contributes to diversification, and here we endeavour to understand the initial conditions that facilitate the maintenance or elimination of new sexual signals and receiver features. New sender and receiver variants can occur through mutation, plasticity, hybridization and cultural innovation, and the initial conditions of the sender, the receiver and the environment then dictate whether a novel cue becomes a signal. New features may arise in the sender, the receiver or both simultaneously. We contend that it may be easier than assumed to evolve new sexual signals because sexual signals may be arbitrary, sexual conflict is common and receivers are capable of perceiving much more of the world than just existing sexual signals. Additionally, changes in the signalling environment can approximate both signal and receiver changes through a change in transmission characteristics of a given environment or the use of new environments. The Anthropocene has led to wide-scale disruption of the environment and may thus generate opportunity to directly observe the evolution of new signals to address questions that are beyond the reach of phylogenetic approaches.

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Section: Novelty and The Maintenance Of Communicationmentioning

confidence: 99%

Evolutionary novelty in communication between the sexes

et al. 2021

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“…Males produce a long-distance mating call that consists of a whine, which can be followed by zero to seven chucks. The addition of chucks increases the attractiveness of the calls fivefold, but chucks are also attractive to the frog-eating bat (58). Thus, males vary the number of chucks as a function of competition with other males and predation risk from bats.…”

Section: Sensory Biology and Signal Designmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…One olfactory gene, IR84a, codes for ORs that are sensitive to volatiles associated with rotting fruit, which is where male D. melanogaster court females and where females deposit eggs. (58). Females choose as mates those males making complex calls and lower-frequency chucks.…”

Section: The Brain and The Hardware Of Mate Choicementioning

confidence: 99%

Darwin, sexual selection, and the brain

Ryan

2021

Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A.

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One hundred fifty years ago Darwin published The Descent of Man, and Selection in Relation to Sex, in which he presented his theory of sexual selection with its emphasis on sexual beauty. However, it was not until 50 y ago that there was a renewed interest in Darwin’s theory in general, and specifically the potency of mate choice. Darwin suggested that in many cases female preferences for elaborately ornamented males derived from a female’s taste for the beautiful, the notion that females were attracted to sexual beauty for its own sake. Initially, female mate choice attracted the interest of behavioral ecologists focusing on the fitness advantages accrued through mate choice. Subsequent studies focused on sensory ecology and signal design, often showing how sensory end organs influenced the types of traits females found attractive. Eventually, investigations of neural circuits, neurogenetics, and neurochemistry uncovered a more complete scaffolding underlying sexual attraction. More recently, research inspired by human studies in psychophysics, behavioral economics, and neuroaesthetics have provided some notion of its higher-order mechanisms. In this paper, I review progress in our understanding of Darwin’s conjecture of “a taste for the beautiful” by considering research from these diverse fields that have conspired to provide unparalleled insight into the chooser’s mate choices.

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“…A second hypothesis is that sensory/cognitive biases emerge in the context of mate choice which arise from independent adaptations or basic design constraints of the sensory and cognitive systems (Ryan and Cummings, 2013;Renoult and Mendelson, 2019). A classic, acoustic example comes from the túngara frog (Physalaemus pustulosus), where the dominant frequencies of male advertisement call components match the previously-evolved tuning of the female inner ear organs (Ryan, 1985;Ryan and Rand, 1990;Ryan et al, 2019). Other biases may be more cognitively rooted, such as the preferences for more complex songs and/or larger repertoires in many oscines, possibly due to an adaptive avoidance of neurological habituation (e.g., Catchpole, 1986;Eda-Fujiwara et al, 2006;Ryan and Cummings, 2013).…”

Section: Origins Of Avian Musicalitymentioning

confidence: 99%

Higher-Order Musical Temporal Structure in Bird Song

et al. 2021

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Bird songs often display musical acoustic features such as tonal pitch selection, rhythmicity, and melodic contouring. We investigated higher-order musical temporal structure in bird song using an experimental method called “music scrambling” with human subjects. Recorded songs from a phylogenetically diverse group of 20 avian taxa were split into constituent elements (“notes” or “syllables”) and recombined in original and random order. Human subjects were asked to evaluate which version sounded more “musical” on a per-species basis. Species identity and stimulus treatment were concealed from subjects, and stimulus presentation order was randomized within and between taxa. Two recordings of human music were included as a control for attentiveness. Participants varied in their assessments of individual species musicality, but overall they were significantly more likely to rate bird songs with original temporal sequence as more musical than those with randomized temporal sequence. We discuss alternative hypotheses for the origins of avian musicality, including honest signaling, perceptual bias, and arbitrary aesthetic coevolution.

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Nineteen Years of Consistently Positive and Strong Female Mate Preferences despite Individual Variation

Cited by 41 publications

References 74 publications

Evolutionary novelty in communication between the sexes

Evolutionary novelty in communication between the sexes

Darwin, sexual selection, and the brain

Higher-Order Musical Temporal Structure in Bird Song

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