Mate choice when males are in patches: optimal strategies and good rules of thumb

Journal of Theoretical Biology
John M C Hutchinson, Konrad Halupka

Abstract

In standard mate-choice models, females encounter males sequentially and decide whether to inspect the quality of another male or to accept a male already inspected. What changes when males are clumped in patches and there is a significant cost to travel between patches? We use stochastic dynamic programming to derive optimum strategies under various assumptions. With zero costs to returning to a male in the current patch, the optimal strategy accepts males above a quality threshold which is constant whenever one or more males in the patch remain uninspected; this threshold drops when inspecting the last male in the patch, so returns may occur only then and are never to a male in a previously inspected patch. With non-zero within-patch return costs, such a two-threshold rule still performs extremely well, but a more gradual decline in acceptance threshold is optimal. Inability to return at all need not decrease performance by much. The acceptance threshold should also decline if it gets harder to discover the last males in a patch. Optimal strategies become more complex when mean male quality varies systematically between patches or years, and females estimate this in a Bayesian manner through inspecting male qualities. It can ...Continue Reading

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Citations

Jun 28, 2013·Proceedings. Biological Sciences·Kai Lindström, Topi K Lehtonen
Apr 15, 2006·Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological Sciences·Hanna Kokko, Daniel J Rankin
Nov 18, 2014·Journal of Evolutionary Biology·H KokkoM D Jennions
Sep 12, 2014·Computational and Structural Biotechnology Journal·Raymond ChengDaniel D Wiegmann
Apr 23, 2005·Behavioural Processes·John M C Hutchinson, Gerd Gigerenzer
Aug 24, 2018·PloS One·Giordano B S FerreiraSunny K Boyd
Feb 25, 2005·Biological Reviews of the Cambridge Philosophical Society·John M C Hutchinson

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