Sexual selection studies: a NESCent catalyst meeting

, , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
1 Hawaii Institute of Marine Biology, University of Hawaii, Kapaa, HI, USA
2 Department of Psychology / Department of Neurobiology & Behavior, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY, USA
3 Department of Biology, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA, USA
4 Department of Integrative Biology & Museum of Vertebrate Zoology, University of California, Berkeley, Berkeley, CA, USA
5 Centre for Ecological Sciences, Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore, India
6 Department of Biological Sciences, Macquarie University, Sydney, NSW, Australia
7 Behavioural Ecology Group, Wageningen University, Wageningen, Netherlands
8 Faculty of Philosophy, University Jean Moulin Lyon 3, Lyon, France
9 Department of Logic and Philosophy of Science, University of California, Irvine, CA, USA
10 Institute of Environmental Sciences, Jagiellonian University, Krakow, Poland
11 Department of Ecology & Evolutionary Biology, Yale University, New Haven, CT, USA
12 Department of Entomology, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Rehovot, Israel
13 Department of Computer Science, University of Bath, Bath, UK
14 Department of Biology, University of Kentucky, Lexington, KY, USA
15 Department of Philosophy, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA, USA
DOI
10.7287/peerj.preprints.680v3
Published
Accepted
Subject Areas
Animal Behavior, Evolutionary Studies
Keywords
Heritability, Natural Selection, Good Genes, Fecundity Selection
Copyright
© 2015 Roughgarden et al.
Licence
This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, reproduction and adaptation in any medium and for any purpose provided that it is properly attributed. For attribution, the original author(s), title, publication source (PeerJ PrePrints) and either DOI or URL of the article must be cited.
Cite this article
Roughgarden J, Adkins-Regan E, Akçay E, Crawford JC, Gadagkar R, Griffith SC, Hinde CA, Hoquet T, O’Connor C, Prokop ZM, Prum RO, Shafir S, Snow SS, Taylor D, Van Cleve J, Weisberg M. 2015. Sexual selection studies: a NESCent catalyst meeting. PeerJ PrePrints 3:e680v3

Abstract

A catalyst meeting on sexual selection studies was held in July 2013 at the facilities of the National Evolutionary Synthesis Center (NESCent) in Durham, NC. This article by a subcommittee of the participants foregrounds some of the topics discussed at the meeting. Topics mentioned here include the relevance of heritability estimates to assessing the presence of sexual selection, whether sexual selection is distinct from natural selection, and the utility of distinguishing sexual selection from fecundity selection. A possible definition of sexual selection is offered based on a distinction between sexual selection as a frequency-dependent process and fecundity selection as a density-dependent process. Another topic highlighted is a deep disagreement among participants in the reality of good-genes, sexy-sons, and run-away processes. Finally, the status of conflict in political-economic theory is contrasted with the status accorded to conflict in evolutionary behavioral theory, and the professional responsibility of sexual-selection workers to consider the ethical dimension of their research is underscored.

Author Comment

This version includes corrections to author name.

Supplemental Information

NESCent Sexual Selection Studies Meeting Report

DOI: 10.7287/peerj.preprints.680v3/supp-1