Handicap principle implies emergence of dimorphic ornaments.

ABSTRACT: Species spanning the animal kingdom have evolved extravagant and costly ornaments to attract mating partners. Zahavi's handicap principle offers an elegant explanation for this: ornaments signal individual quality, and must be costly to ensure honest signalling, making mate selection more efficient. Here, we incorporate the assumptions of the handicap principle into a mathematical model and show that they are sufficient to explain the heretofore puzzling observation of bimodally distributed ornament sizes in a variety of species.

SUBMITTER: Clifton SM 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5136597 | biostudies-literature | 2016 Nov

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature