Kuhelj And Virant-Doberlet's Study

Kuhelj and Virant-Doberlet conducted their study, “Male-Male interactions and male mating success in the leafhopper Aphrodes makarovi” in order to be able to determine how male-male interaction is correlated to their reproductive success. The researchers had first hypothesized that a female leafhopper is more likely to mate with male who exhibits a higher effort in their calls. The males with the longer or louder call would be more likely to get a longer response from the female, which in the end would lead to a greater chance at finding the female quicker than the other male that they were in competition with. This is important due to the fact that a male will not go near a female if there is no response to his call. The frog that was able …show more content…
After reading about this research I had wondered if female’s preference can lead to an evolution of a species over a long period of time. This is based upon that if a female were to prefer one trait over another one, and after a while a species that trait would evolve this specific trait. This question was also one of Robinson, Tudor and Morris, who wanted to explore the other half of a hypothesis from Fisher & Rosenthal who suggested that female swordfish preferred dorsal fins of smaller size, since males with larger dorsal fins tend to have more aggressive behaviors than other. Robinson, Tudor, and Morris had hypothesized that if Fisher & Rosenthal’s statement was true that the female swordfish would prefer the average swordfish dorsal fin to that of the larger sized fin. They also explored in depth how the dorsal fin had a correlation to the courtship of this species by predicted that males would raise their dorsal fins around females more than if they were alone, and that the amount of times that the dorsal fin was raised would lead to a higher amount of mating behaviors. (Robinson, Tudor, Morris, …show more content…
This is different than the study done by Robinson, Tudor, and Morris who had found that female swordfish had preferred males that didn’t have an “average” size dorsal fin. The females of this species show very difference female preferences, this could be due to the fact swordfish have less predators than the leafhopper, so they are able to be more picky with their mate, and the leafhopper wants to increase its fitness and doesn’t have the ability to be picky with her mates. This leads me to believe that if a female exhibits a physical preference in her mate that over time, that trait will evolve, like that of the swordfish. But I do not believe the ability to locate the female leafhopper in males is a trait that could be evolved due to the fact, that the female preference there is based upon luck on who is the lucky one to find her first, and if the trait for the ability to locate a mate were to evolve, in the end it would be harder for the males to find the females due to the fact there would be no advertisement calls which would then lead the ability of finding a female to decrease dramatically or nearly