SynthesisEcology letters2025
Synthesis of Nature's Extravaganza: An Augmented Meta-Meta-Analysis on (Putative) Sexual Signals.
Synthesis in Ecology letters, 2025. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 7 papers, 1 of them a synthesis 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
7 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it.
- Synthesis of Nature's Extravaganza: An Augmented Meta-Meta-Analysis on (Putative) Sexual Signals.Ecology letters · 2025Pooled it
- Taxonomic Bias Persists in Ecology and Evolution Research Despite Decades of Concern.Ecology and evolution · 2026Article
- Carotenoid-based ornaments predict survival in male but not female birds: A meta-analysis.iScience · 2026Article
- New approaches to meta-analyze differences in skewness, kurtosis, and correlation.PLoS biology · 2026Article
- Harnessing meta-analyses' insights in ecology and evolution research.Royal Society open science · 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
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
6 authors.
Funding
Abstract
Colourful body parts and bizarre displays that do not seem to contribute to the survival of individuals that express them have puzzled biologists for centuries. Sexual selection theory posits that these traits evolved because more conspicuous individuals attract more mates and experience greater fitness, yet evidence for this remains fragmented. Our augmented meta-meta-analysis of 41 meta-analyses, encompassing 375 animal species and 7428 individual effect sizes, shows that the conspicuousness of (putative) sexual signals is positively related to mate attractiveness, fitness benefits, individual condition, and other characteristics (e.g., body size) of signal bearers. Most of these patterns are consistent across both taxa and sexes, underscoring the generalisability of our results. Furthermore, the strength of pre-copulatory sexual selection on conspicuousness is positively associated with the relationship between (i) conspicuousness and fitness benefits and (ii) conspicuousness and individual condition. This suggests that the relationships we assessed regarding trait conspicuousness would be stronger if we could select only traits that are truly used for mate attraction. Our study unifies several decades of knowledge on conspicuous traits, confirms many predictions made by the theory of sexual selection, and lays a clear path for the future of research on this topic.
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What 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.