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1. Sexual Selection, Energetics and Ecological Innovation: How Sexual Selection Diversifies the Landscape of Behavior, Morphology and Physiology

   https://doi.org/10.1093/icb/icaf092  

   Somjee, Ummat; Fuxjager, Matthew_J; Khuntia, Purnati; Koch, Rebecca_E; Larter, Luke; Leith, Noah_T; Nagarajan-Radha, Venkatesh; Palaoro, Alexandre_V; Shankar, Anusha; Sondhi, Yash; et al (June 2025, Integrative And Comparative Biology)

   Synopsis Sexual selection drives the evolution of a broad diversity of traits, such as the enlarged claws of fiddler crabs, the high-energy behavioral displays of hummingbirds, the bright red plumage of house finches, the elaborated antennae of moths, the wing “snapping” displays of manakins and the calculated calls of túngara frogs. A majority of work in sexual selection has aimed to measure the magnitude of these traits. Yet, we know surprisingly little about the physiology shaping such a diversity of sexually selected behavior and supportive morphology. The energetic properties underlying sexual signals are ultimately fueled by metabolic machinery at multiple scales, from mitochondrial properties and enzymatic activity to hormonal regulation and the modification of muscular and neural tissues. However, different organisms have different physiological constraints and face various ecological selection pressures; thus, selection operates and interacts at multiple scales to shape sexually selected traits and behavior. In this perspective piece, we describe illustrative case studies in different organisms to emphasize that understanding the physiological and energetic mechanisms that shape sexual traits may be critical to understanding their evolution and ramifications with ecological selection. We discuss (1) the way sexual selection shapes multiple integrated components of physiology, behavior, and morphology, (2) the way that sexually selected carotenoid pigments may reflect some aspects of cellular processes, (3) the relationship between sexually selected modalities and energetics, (4) the hormone ecdysone and its role in shaping sex-specific phenotypes in insects, (5) the way varied interaction patterns and social contexts select for signaling strategies that are responsive to social scenes, and (6) the role that sexual selection may have in the exploitation of novel thermal niches. Our major objective is to describe how sexually selected behavior, physiology, and ecology are shaped in diverse organisms so that we may develop a deeper and more integrated understanding of sexual trait evolution and its ecological consequences. 

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2. Sexual selection and the ascent of women: Mate choice research since Darwin

   https://doi.org/10.1126/science.abi6308  

   Rosenthal, Gil G.; Ryan, Michael J. (January 2022, Science)

   BACKGROUND Charles Darwin’s  Descent of Man, and Selection in Relation to Sex  tackled the two main controversies arising from the Origin of Species:  the evolution of humans from animal ancestors and the evolution of sexual ornaments. Most of the book focuses on the latter, Darwin’s theory of sexual selection. Research since supports his conjecture that songs, perfumes, and intricate dances evolve because they help secure mating partners. Evidence is overwhelming for a primary role of both male and female mate choice in sexual selection—not only through premating courtship but also through intimate interactions during and long after mating. But what makes one prospective mate more enticing than another? Darwin, shaped by misogyny and sexual prudery, invoked a “taste for the beautiful” without speculating on the origin of the “taste.” How to explain when the “final marriage ceremony” is between two rams? What of oral sex in bats, cloacal rubbing in bonobos, or the sexual spectrum in humans, all observable in Darwin’s time? By explaining desire through the lens of those male traits that caught his eyes and those of his gender and culture, Darwin elided these data in his theory of sexual evolution. Work since Darwin has focused on how traits and preferences coevolve. Preferences can evolve even if attractive signals only predict offspring attractiveness, but most attention has gone to the intuitive but tenuous premise that mating with gorgeous partners yields vigorous offspring. By focusing on those aspects of mating preferences that coevolve with male traits, many of Darwin’s influential followers have followed the same narrow path. The sexual selection debate in the 1980s was framed as “good genes versus runaway”: Do preferences coevolve with traits because traits predict genetic benefits, or simply because they are beautiful? To the broader world this is still the conversation. ADVANCES Even as they evolve toward ever-more-beautiful signals and healthier offspring, mate-choice mechanisms and courter traits are locked in an arms race of coercion and resistance, persuasion and skepticism. Traits favored by sexual selection often do so at the expense of chooser fitness, creating sexual conflict. Choosers then evolve preferences in response to the costs imposed by courters. Often, though, the current traits of courters tell us little about how preferences arise. Sensory systems are often tuned to nonsexual cues like food, favoring mating signals resembling those cues. And preferences can emerge simply from selection on choosing conspecifics. Sexual selection can therefore arise from chooser biases that have nothing to do with ornaments. Choice may occur before mating, as Darwin emphasized, but individuals mate multiple times and bias fertilization and offspring care toward favored partners. Mate choice can thus occur in myriad ways after mating, through behavioral, morphological, and physiological mechanisms. Like other biological traits, mating preferences vary among individuals and species along multiple dimensions. Some of this is likely adaptive, as different individuals will have different optimal mates. Indeed, mate choice may be more about choosing compatible partners than picking the “best” mate in the absolute sense. Compatibility-based choice can drive or reinforce genetic divergence and lead to speciation. The mechanisms underlying the “taste for the beautiful” determine whether mate choice accelerates or inhibits reproductive isolation. If preferences are learned from parents, or covary with ecological differences like the sensory environment, then choice can promote genetic divergence. If everyone shares preferences for attractive ornaments, then choice promotes gene flow between lineages. OUTLOOK Two major trends continue to shift the emphasis away from male “beauty” and toward how and why individuals make sexual choices. The first integrates neuroscience, genomics, and physiology. We need not limit ourselves to the feathers and dances that dazzled Darwin, which gives us a vastly richer picture of mate choice. The second is that despite persistent structural inequities in academia, a broader range of people study a broader range of questions. This new focus confirms Darwin’s insight that mate choice makes a primary contribution to sexual selection, but suggests that sexual selection is often tangential to mate choice. This conclusion challenges a persistent belief with sinister roots, whereby mate choice is all about male ornaments. Under this view, females evolve to prefer handsome males who provide healthy offspring, or alternatively, to express flighty whims for arbitrary traits. But mate-choice mechanisms also evolve for a host of other reasons Understanding mate choice mechanisms is key to understanding how sexual decisions underlie speciation and adaptation to environmental change. New theory and technology allow us to explicitly connect decision-making mechanisms with their evolutionary consequences. A century and a half after Darwin, we can shift our focus to females and males as choosers, rather than the gaudy by-products of mate choice. Mate choice mechanisms across domains of life. Sensory periphery for stimulus detection (yellow), brain for perceptual integration and evaluation (orange), and reproductive structures for postmating choice among pollen or sperm (teal). ILLUSTRATION: KELLIE HOLOSKI/ SCIENCE 

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3. The effect of global change on the expression and evolution of floral traits

   https://doi.org/10.1093/aob/mcae057  

   Day Briggs, Samantha; Anderson, Jill T. (April 2024, Annals of Botany)

   Abstract BackgroundPollinators impose strong selection on floral traits, but other abiotic and biotic agents also drive the evolution of floral traits and influence plant reproduction. Global change is expected to have widespread effects on biotic and abiotic systems, resulting in novel selection on floral traits in future conditions. ScopeGlobal change has depressed pollinator abundance and altered abiotic conditions, thereby exposing flowering plant species to novel suites of selective pressures. Here, we consider how biotic and abiotic factors interact to shape the expression and evolution of floral characteristics (the targets of selection), including floral size, colour, physiology, reward quantity and quality, and longevity, amongst other traits. We examine cases in which selection imposed by climatic factors conflicts with pollinator-mediated selection. Additionally, we explore how floral traits respond to environmental changes through phenotypic plasticity and how that can alter plant fecundity. Throughout this review, we evaluate how global change might shift the expression and evolution of floral phenotypes. ConclusionsFloral traits evolve in response to multiple interacting agents of selection. Different agents can sometimes exert conflicting selection. For example, pollinators often prefer large flowers, but drought stress can favour the evolution of smaller flowers, and the size of floral organs can evolve as a trade-off between selection mediated by these opposing actors. Nevertheless, few studies have manipulated abiotic and biotic agents of selection factorially to disentangle their relative strengths and directions of selection. The literature has more often evaluated plastic responses of floral traits to stressors than it has considered how abiotic factors alter selection on these traits. Global change will likely alter the selective landscape through changes in the abundance and community composition of mutualists and antagonists and novel abiotic conditions. We encourage future work to consider the effects of abiotic and biotic agents of selection on floral evolution, which will enable more robust predictions about floral evolution and plant reproduction as global change progresses. 

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4. Cognitive-Behavioral Divergence Is Greater Across Alternative Male Reproductive Phenotypes Than Between the Sexes in a Wild Wrasse

   https://doi.org/10.3389/fevo.2022.929595  

   Cummings, Molly E.; Marsh-Rollo, Susan E.; Alonzo, Suzanne H. (July 2022, Frontiers in Ecology and Evolution)

   Sexual selection is a powerful diversifier of phenotype, behavior and cognition. Here we compare cognitive-behavioral traits across four reproductive phenotypes (females and three alternative males) of wild-caught ocellated wrasse ( Symphodus ocellatus ). Both sex and alternative male phenotypes are environmentally determined with sex determination occuring within the first year, and males transition between alternative phenotypes across 2 years (sneaker to satellite or satellite to nesting). We captured 151 ocellated wrasse and tested them on different behavior and cognition assays (scototaxis, shoaling, and two detour-reaching tasks). We found greater divergence across alternative male reproductive phenotypes than differences between the sexes in behavior, problem-solving, and relationships between these traits. Nesting males were significantly less bold than others, while sneaker males were faster problem-solvers and the only phenotype to display a cognitive-behavioral syndrome (significant correlation between boldness and problem-solving speed). Combining these results with prior measurements of sex steroid and stress hormone across males, suggests that nesting and sneaker males represent different coping styles. Our data suggests that transitioning between alternative male phenotypes requires more than changes in physiology (size and ornamentation) and mating tactic (sneaking vs. cooperation), but also involves significant shifts in cognitive-behavioral and coping style plasticity. 

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5. Pollination intensity and paternity in flowering plants

   https://doi.org/10.1093/aob/mcz159  

   Christopher, Dorothy A; Mitchell, Randall J; Karron, Jeffrey D (October 2019, Annals of Botany)

   Abstract Background Siring success plays a key role in plant evolution and reproductive ecology, and variation among individuals creates an opportunity for selection to act. Differences in male reproductive success can be caused by processes that occur during two stages, the pollination and post-pollination phases of reproduction. In the pollination phase, heritable variation in floral traits and floral display affect pollinator visitation patterns, which in turn affect variation among plants in the amount of pollen exported and deposited on recipient stigmas. In the post-pollination phase, differences among individuals in pollen grain germination success and pollen tube growth may cause realized paternity to differ from patterns of pollen receipt. The maternal plant can also preferentially provision some developing seeds or fruits to further alter variation in siring success. Scope In this review, we describe studies that advance our understanding of the dynamics of the pollination and post-pollination phases, focusing on how variation in male fitness changes in response to pollen limitation. We then explore the interplay between pollination and post-pollination success, and how these processes respond to ecological factors such as pollination intensity. We also identify pressing questions at the intersection of pollination and paternity and describe novel experimental approaches to elucidate the relative importance of pollination and post-pollination factors in determining male reproductive success. Conclusions The relative contribution of pollination and post-pollination processes to variation in male reproductive success may not be constant, but rather may vary with pollination intensity. Studies that quantify the effects of pollination and post-pollination phases in concert will be especially valuable as they will enable researchers to more fully understand the ecological conditions influencing male reproductive success. 

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