ReviewPhilosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences2012
The evolution of female ornaments and weaponry: social selection, sexual selection and ecological competition.
Review in Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences, 2012. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 111 papers, 2 of them syntheses that pooled it.
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
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Who cites it
111 citing papers in PubMed, 2 syntheses or guidelines pooled it, 463 citations in OpenAlex.
- Ornaments are equally informative in male and female birds.Nature communications · 2022Pooled it
- Colourful traits in female birds relate to individual condition, reproductive performance and male-mate preferences: a meta-analytic approach.Biology letters · 2021Pooled it
- Hypotheses for the Adaptive Maintenance of Phenotypic Polymorphisms.Ecology and evolution · 2026Review
- Territoriality modulates the coevolution of cooperative breeding and female song in songbirds.Nature ecology & evolution · 2026Article
- Transcriptomic basis underlying the evolution of female horn plasticity in scarab beetles.Frontiers in zoology · 2026Article
- Teaching Accurate Sex-related Biology: Approaches for More Socially Just Instruction.Integrative and comparative biology · 2026Article
- Evidence for the evolution of male and female cardinals' plumage colouration being affected by both natural and sexual selection.BMC ecology and evolution · 2025Article
- Article
- Vocal performance in birdsong is an aggressive signal in both females and males: experimental evidence from a field study in European robins.Proceedings. Biological sciences · 2025Article
- Why humans evolved blue eyes.Frontiers in psychology · 2025Article
- Climate and ecology predict latitudinal trends in sexual selection inferred from avian mating systems.PLoS biology · 2024Article
- Ant-following behavior is correlated with plumage traits in African understory birds.Die Naturwissenschaften · 2024Article
- Mating competition among females: testing the distinction between natural and sexual selection in an insect.Royal Society open science · 2024Article
- The Genetic Basis Underpinning Sexually Selected Traits across Different Animal Lineages: Are There Genetic Mechanisms in Common?Animals : an open access journal from MDPI · 2024Review
- Sexual dichromatism in the fur of a bat: An exploration of color differences and potential signaling functions.Ecology and evolution · 2024Article
- Article
- Untangling behaviours: independent expressions of female-female aggression and snake-like hissing in the blue tit (Cyanistes caeruleus).Scientific reports · 2023Article
- Evolutionary predictors of the specific colors of birds.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2023Article
- Male harm offsets the demographic benefits of good genes.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2023Article
- Nocturnal selective pressures on the evolution of human musicality as a missing piece of the adaptationist puzzle.Frontiers in psychology · 2023Article
51 more citing papers are in PubMed but not listed here.
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
3 authors at 3 institutions in 3 countries.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Ornaments, weapons and aggressive behaviours may evolve in female animals by mate choice and intrasexual competition for mating opportunities-the standard forms of sexual selection in males. However, a growing body of evidence suggests that selection tends to operate in different ways in males and females, with female traits more often mediating competition for ecological resources, rather than mate acquisition. Two main solutions have been proposed to accommodate this disparity. One is to expand the concept of sexual selection to include all mechanisms related to fecundity; another is to adopt an alternative conceptual framework-the theory of social selection-in which sexual selection is one component of a more general form of selection resulting from all social interactions. In this study, we summarize the history of the debate about female ornaments and weapons, and discuss potential resolutions. We review the components of fitness driving ornamentation in a wide range of systems, and show that selection often falls outside the limits of traditional sexual selection theory, particularly in females. We conclude that the evolution of these traits in both sexes is best understood within the unifying framework of social selection.
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Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.