Chapter 6 - Direct Benefits and the Evolution of Female Mating Preferences: Conceptual Problems, Potential Solutions, and a Field Cricket

Abstract

Abstract Of the many hypotheses for the evolution of female mating preferences, the direct benefits hypothesis is one of the most widely accepted and, paradoxically, one of the least understood. This chapter begins with an overview of the hypothesis and discusses some of the challenges in testing it. While commonly thought to be a simple hypothesis to test, a strong test of the hypothesis is just as difficult as for other major explanations for the evolution of mating preferences. The chapter then discusses some of the conceptual problems with the hypothesis, including potential solutions to these problems. For example, it is not clear why some types of direct benefits evolve, why male signals provide reliable information to females about benefit quality, or how females can consistently select males that provide above average benefits when environmental conditions are variable. It concludes by illustrating some of the challenges and conceptual problems with work by the author on a North American field cricket.