Mating strategies in a simulated Darwinian microworld: Evolutionary
consequences of gestation
Characteristic sex differences in mating strategies (e.g., choosy
females; unselective males) have been claimed by Trivers and other
theorists to evolve as an automatic consequence of sex differences in
minimum parental investment arising chiefly from gestation. The
theory has been supported by correlational evidence and conceptual
analogies to economics. A simulated evolution experiment was
performed to provide a clearer test of whether female gestation alone
can drive the emergence of differences in mating selectivity without
auctions or leks. A population of male and female replicators
initially differed only in that females were unavailable to mate for a
fixed period prior to the appearance of offspring. Over succeeding
generations, females evolved far greater selectivity than males based
on the fitness of a potential mate. Greater female selectivity was
relatively robust with respect to population and genetic parameters,
but quantitatively relatively unstable with realistic breeding
population sizes.
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