Handicap principle implies emergence of dimorphic ornaments

Species spanning the animal kingdom have evolved extravagant and costly ornaments to attract mating partners. Zahavi's handicap principle offers an elegant explanation for this: ornaments signal individual quality, and must be costly to ensure honest signalling, making mate selection more effic...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Proceedings of the Royal Society. B, Biological sciences Biological sciences, 2016-11, Vol.283 (1843), p.20161970-20161970
Main Authors: Clifton, Sara M., Braun, Rosemary I., Abrams, Daniel M.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Animals
Competition
Evolution
Female
Handicap Principle
Male
Mating Preference, Animal
Models, Theoretical
Natural Selection
Ornament
Sex Characteristics
Sexual Selection
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Summary:Species spanning the animal kingdom have evolved extravagant and costly ornaments to attract mating partners. Zahavi's handicap principle offers an elegant explanation for this: ornaments signal individual quality, and must be costly to ensure honest signalling, making mate selection more efficient. Here, we incorporate the assumptions of the handicap principle into a mathematical model and show that they are sufficient to explain the heretofore puzzling observation of bimodally distributed ornament sizes in a variety of species.
ISSN:0962-8452
1471-2954
DOI:10.1098/rspb.2016.1970