Sexual selection and the risk of extinction in mammals.

ABSTRACT: Sexual selection is commonly envisaged as a force working in opposition to natural selection, because extravagant or exaggerated traits could apparently have never evolved via natural selection alone. There is good evidence that a selection load imposed by sexual selection may be eased experimentally by restricting the opportunity for it to operate. Sexual selection could therefore potentially play an important role in influencing the risk of extinction that a population faces, thereby contributing to the apparent selectivity of extinctions. Conversely, recent theory predicts that the likelihood of extinction may decrease when sexual selection is operating because it could accelerate the rate of adaptation in concert with natural selection. So far, comparative evidence (coming mostly from

SUBMITTER: Morrow EH 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC1691875 | biostudies-literature | 2004 Nov

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature