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- Title
Determinants of male fitness: disentangling intra- and inter-sexual selection.
- Authors
FITZE, P. S.; COTE, J.; MARTÍNEZ-RICA, J. P.; CLOBERT, J.
- Abstract
Both intra- and inter-sexual selection may crucially determine a male’s fitness. Their interplay, which has rarely been experimentally investigated, determines a male’s optimal reproductive strategy and thus is of fundamental importance to the understanding of a male’s behaviour. Here we investigated the relative importance of intra- and inter-sexual selection for male fitness in the common lizard. We investigated which male traits predict a male’s access to reproduction allowing for both selective pressures and comparing it with a staged mating experiment excluding all types of intra-sexual selection. We found that qualitatively better males were more likely to reproduce and that sexual selection was two times stronger when allowing for both selective pressures, suggesting that inter- and intra-sexual selection determines male fitness and confirming the existence of multi-factorial sexual selection. Consequently, to optimize fitness, males should trade their investment between the traits, which are important for inter- and intra-sexual selection.
- Subjects
LIZARDS; SEXUAL selection; ANIMAL sexual behavior; REPRODUCTION; LIFE (Biology); BIOLOGICAL evolution
- Publication
Journal of Evolutionary Biology, 2008, Vol 21, Issue 1, p246
- ISSN
1010-061X
- Publication type
Article
- DOI
10.1111/j.1420-9101.2007.01447.x