SynthesisNature ecology & evolution2021
Meta-analysis reveals that animal sexual signalling behaviour is honest and resource based.
Synthesis in Nature ecology & evolution, 2021. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 27 papers, 2 of them syntheses that pooled it.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
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.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
27 citing papers in PubMed, 2 syntheses or guidelines pooled it.
- Synthesis of Nature's Extravaganza: An Augmented Meta-Meta-Analysis on (Putative) Sexual Signals.Ecology letters · 2025Pooled it
- Male alternative reproductive tactics and sperm competition: a meta-analysis.Biological reviews of the Cambridge Philosophical Society · 2022Pooled it
- Carotenoid-based ornaments predict survival in male but not female birds: A meta-analysis.iScience · 2026Article
- Solo songs, duets and territory defence across seasons in female Galápagos yellow warblers,Animal behaviour · 2026Article
- Re-examining hidden fitness: Female preferences for long-path songs in zebra finches.PloS one · 2026Article
- Predicted deleterious mutations reveal the genetic architecture of male reproductive success in a lekking bird.Nature ecology & evolution · 2025Article
- Major histocompatibility complex class IIB disassortative mate choice in a genetically monogamous seabird.Proceedings. Biological sciences · 2025Article
- The nurture of nature: why physical and psychological differences between the sexes are greater in healthier, wealthier societies.Biology letters · 2025Review
- Reliability of meta-analyses in ecology and evolution: (mostly) good news from a case study on sexual signals.Proceedings. Biological sciences · 2025Article
- Experimental data suggest between population reversal in the condition dependence of two sexually selected traits.Scientific reports · 2025Article
- Is provisioning rate of parents and helpers influenced by the simulated presence of novel individuals?Behavioral ecology and sociobiology · 2025Article
- Receiver response to high-intensity courtship differs with courter status in spotted bowerbirdsRoyal Society open science · 2024Article
- The role of condition on sexual selection in the seed bugEcology and evolution · 2024Article
- Alternative reproductive tactics and evolutionary rescue.Evolution letters · 2024Article
- Transcriptomic changes in the posterior pallium of male zebra finches associated with social niche conformance.BMC genomics · 2024Article
- Prediction of individual differences in non-iridescent structural plumage colour from nanostructural periodicity and regularity.Royal Society open science · 2024Article
- A reformulation of Fisher's runaway identifies the heritability of mate choices as a key parameter and highlights limitations of the hypothesis.Proceedings. Biological sciences · 2024Article
- Plumage color degradation indicates reproductive effort: an experiment.Scientific reports · 2023Article
- Ornaments indicate parasite load only if they are dynamic or parasites are contagious.Evolution letters · 2023Article
- Lekking as collective behaviour.Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences · 2023Review
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
1 author.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Animals often need to signal to attract mates and behavioural signalling may impose substantial energetic and fitness costs to signallers. Consequently, individuals often strategically adjust signalling effort to maximize the fitness payoffs of signalling. An important determinant of these payoffs is individual state, which can influence the resources available to signallers, their likelihood of mating and their motivation to mate. However, empirical studies often find contradictory patterns of state-based signalling behaviour. For example, individuals in poor condition may signal less than those in good condition to conserve resources (ability-based signalling) or signal more to maximize short-term reproductive success (needs-based signalling). To clarify this relationship, I systematically searched for published studies examining animal sexual signalling behaviour in relation to six aspects of individual state: age, mated status, attractiveness, body size, condition and parasite load. Across 228 studies and 147 species, individuals (who were predominantly male) invested more into behavioural signalling when in good condition. Overall, this suggests that animal sexual signalling behaviour is generally honest and ability-based. However, the magnitude of state-dependent plasticity was small and there was a large amount of between-study heterogeneity that remains unexplained.
Indexed as
Identifiers
33723423What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
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.