Why Do We Choose Our Mates? Ask Charles Darwin(June 15, 2009) — Charles Darwin wrote about it 150 years ago: animals don't pick their mates by pure chance – it's a process that is deliberate and involves numerous factors. After decades of examining his work, experts agree that he pretty much scored a scientific bullseye, but a very big question is, "What have we learned since then?" asks a Texas A&M University biologist who has studied Darwin's theories.

Adam Jones, an evolutional biologist who has studied Darwin's work for years, says that Darwin's beliefs about the choice of mates and sexual selection being beyond mere chance have been proven correct, as stated in Darwin's landmark book The Descent of Man, and Selection in Relation to Sex.

Bottom line: It's no accident that certain peahens submit to gloriously-colored male peacocks, that lions get the females of their choice or that humans spend hours primping to catch the perfect spouses – it's a condition that is ingrained into all creatures and a conscious "choice" is made between the two so the romantic fireworks can begin.

Jones says Darwin set the standard for original thinking about animal reproduction and was first scientist to propose plausible mechanisms of evolution, and from there he took it one step further – he confirmed that animals' mating choices can drive evolutionary change.

"He noticed that birds, especially, seemed to be a bit picky about who they mated with," Jones explains. "He discovered that birds – especially females – had preferences and that they did not just choose a mate randomly. He believed this is due to beauty of the plumage, that females usually selected the most colorful males.

"That was an important first step, and it's given us models to work from to try to answer other big questions."

Those include determining methods to find out the actual criteria used in choosing a mate, what methods work and which do not, and the passing of genes on to the next generation, a field of study Jones says gained popularity in the 1970s and 1980s.

"Another big recent advance was the development of molecular markers, which allow us to perform paternity testing," Jones adds.

"These markers can be applied to animal populations, and they give us a definitive record of who is mating with whom and what offspring resulted from the mating events. And also, what is the driving force behind sexual selection? We have an unprecedented ability to document mating patterns but we still don't completely understand why some populations experience strong sexual selection and others don't."

Jones notes that other key questions Darwin's work uncovered but has not yet answered include the role of population characteristics and the environment and how they work together to produce strong sexual selection, and also what determines whether or not female choice will evolve in a particular species.

And perhaps the biggest question of all: How does all of this pertain to humans?

"Darwin concluded that sexual selection existed in the animal world and that humans definitely followed a similar process," Jones confirms.

"But he realized he had to explain it first as it related to animals. Darwin thought that sexual selection was an important process in humans, both for males and females. But how much has sexual selection acted on males versus females in humans? Today, while we are celebrating the 200th year of the birth of Charles Darwin, we know sexual selection occurs and is very important but there are still many unanswered questions about precisely why and how it works, especially in humans."

In ten words or less....because they are hot?

I just finished taking a course on, "Biology and Human Behavior: The Neurological Origins of Individually" by Robert Sapolsky. It's a fascinating course and very enlightening, I highly recommend it.

In any case, within that course he lectures on the origins of sexual behavior. The first thing he points out is that animals basically show two types of mating behavior. One type is called a "Tournament Species" where the male tend to fight for the right to be the head of a harem of females. The other males simply lose their mating privileges altogether. The second type of called "Monogamous Pairing" where a single male and female mate for life.

In a Tournament Species, which is common in many primates and other mammals, the males fight for the right to be the stud of the harem. Once they obtain this position they methodically go about killing all the young babies in the troop, or pack. This is because those babies are not their offspring. It also causes those mothers to go back into ovulation more quickly. Mothers won't go back into ovulation if they are nursing a baby. So in a Tournament Species life is pretty brutal. One male gets all the sex. Infantcide is commonplace and the male does not help to raise the young. The females must raise their own babies.

Sounds pretty cruel, but Dr. Sapolsky suggests that this is indeed the background of human evolution. We did indeed evolve from a tournament species and we still carry many of the traits of a tournament species. Males are typically larger than females. Human males have slightly larger canine teeth. And many human males do indeed exhibit polygamous behavior.

In monogamous pairing species, the differences between the males and females are far less. The males may be more brightly colored, but they typically aren't larger or stronger. In fact, in many monogamous species the females are actually slightly larger. Instead of fighting with other males for the right to mate with a female, in a monogamous species the male will simply display his parenting abilities directly to the female. He may bring her food, or nesting material to show that he can feed the family and help build a home. The males also stick around to help raise the offspring in a monogamous species. In fact, in some extreme cases the males raise the offspring entirely whilst the females goes off to find a second mate. That's may not sound very monogamous, but the idea is that she at least sticks around to get the home started.

In any case, humans actually have more traits of a Tournament Species than of a monogamous species. Although on an individual level there are human males that tend to be more monogamously oriented than tournament oriented. Dr. Sapolsky suggests that we're a very confused and borderline species. I'm inclined to agree wholeheartedly.

It is truly scary and cruel when you think about it, but I figure it was all done for survival purposes.

I just read about the primates bonobo's and how they actually resolve problems by having sex. When agitated or in disagreement they don't kill each other or other families for that matter to resolve issues. They simply have sex instead. If it is frustration sex then so be it.

I find it interesting for chimpanzee's have been witnessed to kill each other occassionally as of others of the primate species including humans on disagreements. Just look at one example of the history of TROY. Complete nations have been at war because of a couple who fell in love!

Just the bonobo's don't. How ironic isn't it?

And it is interesting because their idealogy has also made it until today without being threatened to be on the extinction list.

So yes it seems most animals would be classified as the tournament species and only a few would be into the monogamous pairing even amongst humans!

I wonder if this is natural instinct for survival or an adapted behavorial identity out of desire?

For me I can only shake my head at the notions.

i don't know about yall but i chose my my women by the ones that have the best booties and boobies

Well, in the case of a tournament species, it certainly doesn't seem to be done for the survival of the species, but rather for the survival of the genes of the individual.



I don't think evolution is geared for survival to be perfectly honest about it. I think it just happens, and whatever survives survives, and whatever doesn't doesn't.

It's that simple.

Look at the dinosaurs. They survived for 300 million years and hardly evolved at all during that entire period of time. We, on the other hand, have only been around for few million years and we've already put the dinosaurs to shame intellectually.

I think evolution just happens. I don't think there's any rhyme or reason to it. We're just lucky. There's no driving force behind it. It's all just a toss of the primal soup.

You are right. If we start asking "why" all the time we can go insane trying to find the answer.

It's is all just a toss of the primal soup. I can accept this for the answer, yet I can't imagine you as a scientist can?

Scientists are known to ask "why" and continue looking for a solid answer.

Well in time we will probably know more. We just have to keep reaching for the stars for I believe there are answers out there for us.

This is all very interesting stuff - but how does it translate into making choices in today's era of internet meetings and speed dates? The colorful plumage, for example, may be an avitar, missing completely or be a total line of BS during the "evaluation" and selection process.

Good scientists don't ask "why?", they ask, "how?".

I feel that I understand enough physics, chemistry, and biology to understand "How" evolution works. To ask "Why" is is the way it is not a question of science. That's a question of philosophy or religion.

The only thing that I've come to realize is that the so-called "design" is not as great as religious people would like to believe. If we were created intentionally by some supreme being(s) then it's more like a happenstance experiment than anything else. It's certainly not an intelligent design.




I don't think we'll ever know "Why" things are the way they are, unless some supreme being(s) make themsleves known to us and explain it.

Using science to discover "How" the universe works is truly all we can ever hope to do. As to "Why" it came to be the way it is, I seriously doubt that such a question could be answered.

Alan Guth, has offered scientific explantions for "how" the universe came to be Euclidean, and for "how" it could have come to exist from zero energy without violating the conservation of energy.

Again, those are "How" questions. They don't even come close to answering "why" the unviverse has any of these properties at all. In fact, Alan Guth Inflation Theory that offers "how" things things occurred only works because it's based on having observed the physics of the unvierse. So it's "how" it is, because of "what" it is. But still no one knows "what" it is, or "why" quantum fields exist in the first place.

Science can never answer those questions because science only looks at "how" the universe behaves. It doesn't even remotely try to guess "why" it exists.

The only thing I know is that evolution is actually quite sloppy and happenstance. Hardly what I would call and "Intelligent Design".

So I guess that kind of answers part of the "why" question.

In other words, if someone asks, "Do you think the universe is the way it is because of Intelligent Design?". Then the answer would need to be, "Sorry, but the universe isn't very intelligently designed actually".

So if that's part of a "why" question, then perhaps we can know at least something of that "why".

It doesn't.

People in today's era don't make very good choices. Marriages don't last, families units don't stay together. We've actually evolved to be quite egotistical and arrogant. Everyone wants to be an "individual".

That's where we're at in today's era.

The King has died and was replaced by democracy and free enterprise.

Long rest the King!

There is an outstanding book on this subject well worth reading. It's called "The Red Queen, Sex and the Evolution of Human Nature" by Matt Ridly.

Human's are such a freak show!

THAT is a given, but darned if we aren't fun to watch!

I will have to read up on Alan Guth and see what he mentions about the universe.

It is truly amazing that scientists come up with quantum fields but don't know why they exist in the first place.

Didn't Albert Einstein say (in this nature) that the universe was created by mistake? What did he actually mean when he spent all those years trying to figure out how the universe actually works?

I will see how to attain this book. Thanks for the tip

Let me play devil's advocate for a moment while still posing the question around "traditional" vs "online" meeting/dating.

In the traditional dating environment, it would seem that the plumage attraction is what rules first and foremost. I mean, does anyone even APPROACH anyone that doesn't catch their eye? We judge, first and foremost, the book by its cover.

In an electronic environment some of that certainly goes on, but given that we all know it could be 100% BS, do we take the plumage more/less at face value or give it less importance? Think about how many photos aren't even real. Perhaps that makes us operate in a different mind set than in person. If communication happens, it isn't necessarily with the plumage as the leading incentive.

I don't think there are any reliable statistics to draw comparisons related to success/failure ratios of traditional/electronic meetings. Our divorced parents and many of the single people on this site are single as a result of traditionally initiated relationships. Electronic relationships may crash and burn, too, but is there any way to create a valid comparison as it relates to the attraction/plumage/how are we more or less like animals question?

Tournament Species example:

Between the months of October and March the red-eyed tree frogs go through the act of reproduction we all know as sex. Here is a brief illustration of how red-eyed tree frogs mate:

“Fore play”

In order to attract female frogs the male frogs call out from branches and leaves above ponds (the red-eyed tree frog's mating site) in the rainy season of Middle America (October through March). The male frogs sit in the tree leaves and make a single or double noted “cluck” noise about every 8-10 seconds. The male frogs will begin to ‘quiver' at the height of the mating song and may even jump from leaf to leaf inflating their vocal sacs and rising up on all fours to make themselves appear larger and heavier in order to show intimidate other frogs from obtaining their territory. If one of the male frogs makes a movement towards another male frog's territory a sort of wrestling match occurs in which the males will climb on top of one another and attempt to pin the other one down.

The female, hearing all the commotion and seeing the males wrestle, becomes interested and comes out of hiding. Once the female comes out of hiding the males attempt to be the first one to jump onto her back and fight for the best position to hang on to her back.

“Getting it on!”

The male will grasp the female so that he is dorsal to her with his forelimbs around the female frog's waist with his forelimbs over her forelimbs. Once the female has a male securely attached to her back, otherwise known as the arboreal oviposition or amplexus, the female descends into the pond below them where she takes water into her bladder. She then climbs up onto a leaf which hangs over the pond and releases a clutch of 11-78 eggs, releasing water over them so that the eggs will not dry out. The female is able to lay about 3-4 clutches per night but must re-fill her bladder with water between each clutch.

Offspring:

The eggs that the female lays are approximately 2.25 mm in size and are a greenish color with a clear gelatinous outer coating. After about 5-11 days the eggs hatch and slide off the leaf over hanging the pond into the water. The young red-eyed tree frogs will stay in the tadpole stage for approximately 40-60 days and are filter feeders, eating mainly algae.

After the marine tadpole stage the young, now terrestrial tree frogs, are a greenish color with round pupils and yellow irises. The tree frog will develop its famous elliptical pupils and red irises about three weeks after becoming terrestrial.

The males are sexually active after about a year when they develop horny nuptial excrescences on their thumbs. After that first year the frogs are ready and more than willing to reproduce and can live up to about 5 years of age.