9701258 Dissertation Research: Selection on Male Ornaments Through Male-Male Competition Natural selection of ornaments in males have received considerable attention. Most recent attention, however, has focused on the role of female preference for male ornaments. One model regarding how such traits and preferences can begin to co-evolve is pre-existing bias. According to models of pre-existing bias, female preference predates the trait. The reasons such biases may exist are numerous, such as, a bias may be related to some other context (i.e. feeding) or to some means of nonspecific evaluation or due to some bias that no longer extant. Any trait that arises that can take advantage of such a bias would be selected. Though such biases are demonstrated in females of many species, contributing to the exaggerated and maintenance of male traits, it has not been examined whether males may also have such biases. This study will examine whether the males of one group may have pre-existing biases (in addition to the females) which has contributed to the exaggeration of a sexually selected trait. Intra-sexual selection due to pre existing biases may play an important role in the exaggeration of male traits, but have not been previously examined. Positive results from the proposed work would suggest that students of sexual selection should reexamine the role of male-male competition in the evolution of male traits.
