Posted on 11/30/2016 7:28:24 PM PST by JimSEA
Why do some animals have extravagant, showy ornaments -- think elk and deer antlers, peacock feathers and horns on dung beetles -- that can be a liability to survival? Charles Darwin couldn't figure it out, but now a Northwestern University research team has a possible explanation for this puzzling phenomenon of evolution.
The researchers developed a mathematical model that made a surprising prediction: In animals with ornamentation, males will evolve out of the tension between natural selection and sexual selection into two distinct subspecies, one with flashy, "costly" ornaments for attracting mates and one with subdued, "low-cost" ornaments.
"Ornamentation does persist in nature, and our quantitative model reveals that a species can split into two subspecies as a result of the ornamentation battle that occurs over time," said Daniel M. Abrams, an associate professor of engineering sciences and applied mathematics in the McCormick School of Engineering.
Evidence from nature agrees. The researchers studied available data on animal ornaments, such as deer antlers, peacock feathers, brightness of certain fish and tail length of some birds, from 15 species. They found the same distribution pattern of ornament sizes across many of the species: The animals often split into the two subgroups predicted by the model, one showy and one subdued, with very few in the middle.
(Excerpt) Read more at sciencedaily.com ...
After developing their model, the researchers studied 23 data sets from 15 different animal species from the published scientific literature and found that all were consistent with their model. There were no exceptions.
"The model is completely independent of the underlying genetic mechanism that causes these ornaments to grow, which I find fascinating," Braun said. "It tells us that if you have these two competing forces, natural selection and sexual selection, two morphs, or subgroups, will emerge. The model is so general it can be applied to many different species and still have the same explanatory power.""
The persistence of pea foul in Southeast Asia has always seemed too much to be signally explained away by sexual selection. I mean, look at the hungry predators ranging from the civit cat to the tiger that range in the same forests that have been home to the Myanmar Peacock and more recently domestic pea foul. I mean, there are 9 species of cat alone. Bears, snakes really big and fast snakes, alligators, other birds and monkeys are all in the neighborhood. Many of them kill people, so what is a fancy and multiply handicapped but likely tasty bird doing there.
I understand the argument that "by surviving his many handicaps, he shows the female his worthy biology." That's the same one used for antlered beasts that survive the handicap of carrying something that gets caught in the brush and in the horns of the competition. However when you look at the male peacock waddle around open to the attack of any halfway bright cat it seems possible that human intervention had to of occurred. Except, people have only protected then in relatively recent times, certainly not long enough to account for the several species in Asia and Africa.
gays spend a lot on costly clothes/hair/makeup in order to attract the opposite sex. But it pays off handsomely in attracting partners which of course leads to more offspring. I’ll make a computer model. Can i have a grant?
Guys or gays?
Is your screen name a pizza joke?
Awesome discovery, based on a host of flawed foundations.
Universities need to teach common sense.
As it happens... flashy tail feathers fall out with relative ease, much easier than feathers on the rest of a bird, leaving predators with unpalatable feathers instead of meat.
I know. It’s god that did it. No further thought is necessary. This argument, interestingly enough has been adopted by Muslims, Hindus, many Buddhists, Judaism, many varieties of Paganism, Taoism, Egyptian Paganism and Wicca. Oh snap! I omitted Hellenism and Roman paganism.
Always a possibility.
Lol. But likely true.
About 50 years ago I met a very bright man who pointed out that whenever any type of animal evolves a very distinctive feature it has something to do with “either eating or copulating.”
Ladies love outlaws.
I believe you have a good part of the tale. The Dinosaurs certainly had a lot that could only be explained by sexual selection. I just think that there has to be more. The dinosaurs had big muscles and sharp teeth. Staring at peacocks, my thought is always “beautiful and the feathers can be used to make awesome trout flies” but they are otherwise worthless consumers of food. Is this what the kids inherit..
Darwin did it. No need for further investigation, the evolutionary fitness of foul peas notwithstanding.
1. I always pick the good looking guy. Rich doesn't mean generous but good looking is just nice to be with and see the envy in the other women.
2. Being female, I imagine it depends on the age of the male and how much of a Christian he is -- in thought, word and deed.
At 16 I imagine the male wants to boink anything that moves...or doesn't move.
At 20 he wants the same thing, only several of them on the string.
At 30 he wants the same thing without his wife finding out.
At 40 he wants the same thing, only teenage.
At 50 he wants to shoot par.
At 60 he wants to be able to urinate without hurting.
At 70 he just likes to look.
...Haven't got the rest YET.
Yup. Awesome discovery!
some scientist got a federal grant to explain why “gold diggers” occur in the natural selection process.
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