Sexual Selection and Animal Adaptations

[Mrs.Jordan]

How are Sexual Selection and Animal Adaptations correlated? I'm guessing animals adapt in order to become more appealing to possible mates (sexual selection)??

[Mokele]

Pretty much.

[Mrs.Jordan]

Yeah, I'm kind of looking for a more in depth explanation. But, thank you.

[Mokele]

Well, there's a lot of good resources online. It seems a bit counterproductive for me to repeat every detail that can be found easily in many textbooks.

[Mr Skeptic]

Some of the adaptations can be maladaptive, and yet increase the fitness due to improved mating chances. Eg the peacock's beautiful feathers.

[iNow]

Further, a "maladaptive" genetic change may only be so for a given period of time. You could be born into an environment with an adaptation that is regarded as maladaptive, but if that environment suddenly changes (or, if you move/migrate) then that adapatation (as a result of the change to the environment) may suddenly become advantageous. Basically, the "goodness" or "badness" of the adaptation is environment-dependent, and evironments often change.

 

The point I always try to remember is that survival comes first. If you can't survive, then you can't have sex (due to being dead), so sexual selection is secondary to personal survival.

 

 

Also, there's a slight problem with the premise of the OP. Animals don't "adapt to be more attractive." That's sort of putting the cart before the horse. I don't wake up in the morning and say, "You know, I want to be more attractive so I can do better during sexual selection."

 

What happens is that the more attractive animals are selected at a higher frequency than unattractive animals, hence after a few generations you see a shift in the population toward greater attractiveness. While an animal can take steps to maximize their attractiveness (build a nest with coke bottles instead of rocks, change the color of feathers by rolling in glitter in the dumpster of a craft store, try new cologne, etc.), the change in genetic attractiveness only comes after several generations of selection has occurred. It happens at the level of the population, not the individual.

Edited January 8, 2009 by iNow