Abstract
Much progress has been made over the last 30 years showing the complexity of female mate choice. There is now a better understanding of why females choose certain males over others, as well as the various mechanisms used to make mate choice decisions. It is also known that female mate choice can exert significant sexual selection on male sexual traits and that there is likely to be a strong genetic basis to mate choice, as well as significant positive genetic covariance between mate choice and the expression of the preferred sexual trait. However, female mate choice does not always drive the evolutionary divergence of male sexual traits in a predictable way, and the role of female mate choice in facilitating reproductive isolation and speciation is likely to be even more complex. More research on mate choice in insects is still needed and this chapter outlines some future directions.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Title of host publication | Evolution of Insect Mating Systems |
| Editors | David M. Shuker, Leigh W. Simmons |
| Place of Publication | U.K. |
| Publisher | Oxford University Press |
| Pages | 129-158 |
| Number of pages | 30 |
| ISBN (Electronic) | 9780191788987 |
| ISBN (Print) | 9780199678020 |
| DOIs | |
| Publication status | Published - 2014 |
Keywords
- insects
- sex
- courtship in animals
- evolution