Some stuff written on the previous paper in the previous post (previous)

A bit to include in dissertation:

Mays and Hill emphasise the disparity between mate choice strategies that seek optimal genetic compatability (their example being those mates most genetically dissimilar) and those that seek the traditional good genes targets. Firstly they, by emphasising the disparity and opposition of these two strategies so strongly, miss the chance to see how there two strategies can act to moderate each other and reach a stable equilibrium. Secondly they fail to highlight the fact that neither strategy is stable on its own. A female seeking highly genetically dissimilar males may suffer reduced fecundity and also an increased incidence of recessive alleles in her offspring. The good genes strategy, usually defined as a stalwart strategy, described in much theoretical work, suffers from a tendency to inbredding depression. This of course occurs due to a runaway process of increasing correlation between the male trait and female preference. Natural selection would of course curb the extremes of this strategy. However if the two strategies were to coexist in one individual there is no need for natural selection to be involved as strongly. Instead the two strategies work best when they occur together. This is evidenced by some recent theoretical work that indicated that female mice choose their mates based on both of these supposedly opposing criteria. This paper, although well considered and thought out in its opinion, highlights the tendency for researchers to subscribe and support one theory only, in a kind of membership process, each member aligns themselves with a "side" without considering the possible synergy of the two (or more) theories. Why cant females employ good genes, genetic dissimilarity, handicap traits, sexy sons and purely aesthetic criteria in their mate selection strategy, and why can't they do so at different times based on when each strategy is most useful, if all of these strategies can be useful given different conditions, then we would expect all of them to evolve.

Another meeting

Not much happened today.

I haven't been working hard enough and therefore didn't have much to discuss today.

Im still trying to read things.

heres a recently read paper.

Notes on:
Choosing Mates: good genes versus genes that are a good fit.
Mays, H.L. and Hill, G.E

on the subject of heterozygosity versus compatability:
Very important, we can't ignore the fact that a highly heterozygous male is more likely to produce offspring with homozgous recessive mutations.

on rules within rules:
ref:15 <- "this study not only supports the idea that female mice are using good genes and genetic dissimilarity simultaneously in the form of a nested rule, but also that females can alter their mate choice strategy in response to changes in the characteristics of available males."

They said this because in ref:15 the female mice would alter their mate choice strategy (either for a good genes marker or for mhc dissimilarity) depending on the variability in these traits in the available males. If there was low variability in the good genes marker they would select for dissimilarity and vice versa.

on future directions:
A comment on ref:43 <- "Shohet and watt demonstrated a negative relationship between visual attractiveness and olfactory attractiveness in guppies" This is then said to be slight evidence for antagonism between good genes and genetic similarity traits.


ref 15: This is a very good "evidence" paper.
Roberts, S.C. and Gosling, L.M., 2003, Genetic similarity and quality interact in mate choice decisions by female mice. NAture Genetics, 35, pp103-106.

ref 43:
Shohet, A.J. and Watt,P.J., 2004, Female association preferences based on olfactory cues in the guppy Poecillia reticulata, Behavioural Ecology and Sociobiology, 55, pp363-369

Not much to add

I've done some more updates on the sim code.

But its still annoying me a lot, im concerned that rather than choosiness being a useless strategy, it is actually an impossible thing to achieve in my simulation.

hmmmm.