Despite extensive literature on female mate choice, empirical evidence on women’s preferences in the search for a sperm donor is scarce, even though this search, by isolating a male’s genetic impact on offspring from other factors like paternal investment, offers a naturally 'controlled'...

The courtship and mounting behavior of promiscuous tortoises is based on a multiple signaling system that includes visual, olfactory, tactile, and acoustic signals. Vocalizations related to mounting seem to be particularly intriguing because tortoises vocalize mainly at this time. Vocalizations...

Studies of mate choice commonly ignore variation in preferences and assume that all individuals should favor the highest-quality mate available. However, individuals may differ in their mate preferences according to their own age, experience, size, or genotype. In the present study, we highlight...

Learning in the context of mate choice can influence sexual selection and speciation. Relatively little work, however, has been conducted on the role of learning in the context of mate choice, and this topic has been mostly ignored in insects even though insects have served as a prime model...

The dynamics of hybrid zones are likely to be influenced greatly by patterns of mate choice, including "cryptic" choice mediated through extrapair copulations. To understand changes in hybrid zones over time and space, a detailed examination of mating patterns and correlates is needed. We...

Female tree crickets (Oecanthus nigricornis) prefer large males but do not receive larger glandular courtship gifts from these males. This finding is puzzling from both the male and female perspectives, because females should prefer males providing more direct benefits, and because males who...

Male-biased dimorphism in body size is usually attributed to sexual selection acting on males, through either male competition or female choice. Brown antechinuses (Antechinus stuartii) are sexually dimorphic in size, and heavier males are known to sire more offspring in the wild. We...

The availability of breeding sites has been predicted to affect the intensity of sexual selection, including mate competition, mate choice and ultimately, variation in mating success. We tested the hypothesis that reduced density of shelters would cause an increase in the intensity of sexual...

We experimentally investigated whether learning from previous experiences can lead to the establishment of a new mate preference in a wild population of birds. During year one (2001), 63 female collared flycatchers (Ficedula albicollis) bred together with males that we had provided with a novel...