Charles Darwin's Theory Of Sexual Selection

Nat Crocker

Introduction

Sexual selection is the an accepted theory that is found when a gender of a species chooses (selects ) his or her mate. Charles Darwin put it as, “…the advantage, which certain individuals have over others of the same sex and species solely in respect of reproduction.” (http://infidels.org/library/historical/charles_darwin/descent_of_man/chapter_08.html) Two common types of sexual selection are male to male competition, and female choice. Male to male is when the males fight ‘win the right’ to reproduce with the females. Female choice is when the females choose the most formidable male to produce offspring with. (http://www.nyu.edu/projects/fitch/courses/evolution/html/sexual_selection.html) With female choice the males must find some way to be more ‘attractive’ to the females. The female looks for a favorable trait that shows sings of survival for her offspring to have. The female’s eggs are valuable so she must choose wisely. Since there is such a strong search for the strongest mate, the Sexual Selection leads to sexual dimorphism. Sexual Dimorphism is the different characterizes of an individual in a species. For example, the male northern cardinal is a bold red and the female is a very drab boring brownish color. If the male was a dull red and

In the middle of the tank there was a black line down the middle of the center panel that will show which side the female is closest to which means what male guppy she is most attracted too. During the test after every 30-seconds, whichever side the female guppy was on was recorded into the data. To ensure that the female guppy was not attracted to a particular side instead of the tail length, after every test, the male with the big tail that was originally on the right side was now on the left and the small tail male guppy also switched sides. There were five tests in this experiment. With three big tail and two small tail males on the