Males Court Bearded Ladies Less | The Scientist Magazine® - 0 views
www.the-scientist.com/?articles.view/articleNo/38186/title/Males-Court-Bearded-Ladies-Less/
males court science research
shared by grayton downing on 13 Nov 13
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many females also don blue ornamentations like the males, though they are less bright. These so-called “bearded ladies”—masculinized females—suffer reproductive consequences as a result of their markings.
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We were very excited to find that ornamented females appear to pay costs of reduced reproductive output,
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males dislike ornamented females because blue badges indicate a potentially negative quality in females. Although both sexes may develop similar ornaments because they share the genes that underlie the phenotype, expressing the ornament can be beneficial in one sex but detrimental in another.
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One solution is to have the expression of [ornamentation] regulated by other factors that are already different between sexes,”
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the causation and persistence of ornamentation in females” as well as “unambiguous information on fitness consequences of female ornamentation,” he continued. Because both sexes produce testosterone, added Cox, “regulation by testosterone is not a perfect mechanism for complete sex-limitation [of blue badge expression].”
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detrimental ornamentation in females is a paradox that “begs the interesting question of why male-typical ornamentation persists in female fence lizards,” said Langkilde. “We plan to follow this up by examining potential benefits associated with these male-typical ornaments in females.”