The Mate Selection Trapdoor
nautil.us
nautil.us
> When the chuck evolved, it was lucky enough to exploit a hidden preference, but we now see it was not uniquely attractive. Many different kinds of sounds might have worked just as well; the luck of the chuck was being first.
Many secondary sexual attributes that we consider to be a major marker of a species likely evolved by accident. Females of a species may be attracted to something out of the ordinary (feathers on the head, an oddly shaped fin, etc.), and the first extraordinary trait wins.
Also, accidents happen. Male Australian beetles find empty beer bottles incredibly attractive. Or they used to, until the shape of the bottle was changed to alleviate the problem.
Cf. https://www.npr.org/sections/krulwich/2013/06/19/193493225/t...
You'd expect that, wouldn't you, but recent events say otherwise.
I guess they favor recall, over precision.
However, most insects are heavily r selected (low parental investment, lots of offspring). So the cost of eggs/parental investment relative to sperm isn't nearly as polarized as in a K selected species, e.g., humans, whales, elephants.
Though it would seem even with a slight difference in the metabolic cost of eggs vs sperm, and eons of time, the bee's "search algorithm" would be optimized/directionally selected toward favoring recall. A similar dynamic also works behind Gause's law, where two competing species can't sustain a constant population while occupying the same ecological niche, over a multi-generational timescale.