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Behavioral Ecology Vol. 12 No. 3: 264-266
© 2001 International Society for Behavioral Ecology
Hamilton Symposium |
Bill Hamilton, sexual selection, and parasites
Max-Planck-Institute of Limnology, Department of Evolutionary Ecology, August-Thienemann-Strasse 2, D-24306 Ploen, Germany
Address correspondence to M. Milinski. E-mail: milinski@mpil-ploen.mpg.de .
Darwin (1871
) first
introduced the idea that males with elaborate ornaments have a net benefit
because they are preferred as mates. Evidence for such preferences is now
abundant (e.g., Andersson,
1994). A more troublesome problem has been to understand the
evolution of female preferences for handicapped males. Until the early 1980s,
there were mainly two theories: (1) Fisher's
(1930) runaway process, which
predicts that the male character and the female preference could, through
genetic correlation in the offspring, advance together with ever-increasing
speed. This was "easy to see," as Fisher wrote, and therefore he
did not provide a formal proof. (2) Zahavi's
(1975) handicap principle: a
female prefers a male with a handicapping trait because this male must have
high viability (i.e. good genes), to be able to survive with the handicap.
Both hypotheses appeared to resist any theoretical proof that was based on
conventional population
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