ZOOLOGY 260 Lecture Notes - Lecture 3: Red Queen Hypothesis, Mate Choice, Parental Investment
2 Feb 2017
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Evolutionary ecology part b: struggle for survival and the priority of reproduction. Darwin explained sexual selection as a form of natural selection based on mate choice. Selecting mates w/ high fitness they can pass to offspring. Mate choice leads to differential reproduction bc choosing poor-quality mate may diminish fitness of offspring. Fitness- cumulative reproductive success of an organism & all its relatives. Ex of no (mate) choice of reproduction = oysters. Sex appeared maladaptive after we learned genetics. Mendel (1822-1884) discovered that sexually reproducing parents donate only a subset (average half) of each parent"s genes randomly to offspring. Extraordinary evidence discovered by scientific community in 1900. Asexual reproducers (clones) donate 100% of genes. Clone genes have twice as high fitness. Sex should be maladaptive (conferring lower relative fitness) Sex must be adaptive to have evolved many times independently in very distantly. Increases prob of reproducing despite changing environments/mate choices. Female- whichever sex invests more in the sex cell (choosier)
