Wildlife does not have access to mirrors to see (and judge) own phenotype, like head characteristics (eye or face colors, forehead patch, crown...).
In several species, male colors are bright and often exposed at body parts male bearers cannot see themselves. In birds, male crown, male forehead patches, or male bill characteristics might have been selected by females, but the male bearers do not have access to this information because they do not use mirrors as in humans.
What are benefits for females to select male traits (e.g; face or eye colors, head characteristics) that males cannot see themselves? Does it hide to male bearers why females selected or ignored them, perhaps beneficial for females? What are costs for males when they don't know why females choose them?
Males that cannot see their own sexually selected secondary traits cannot manipulate them, for instance to hide 'reliable' information addressed towards females exploiting this information.
When males are permanently exposed to their own secondary sexually traits, perhaps they reduce vigilance.
Some people might argue that sexually secondary traits like male song performance or other vocalizations can be verified by those that produce them.
There are several ways to answer this question. I will pick two that represent a spectrum of how much information the male may have about their own "state".
At the end of the spectrum where males may have quite a lot of information about their own state..... For many display traits, including those that males cannot directly assess for themselves (e.g. by seeing them), the intensity or level of display is correlated to many physiological properties of the individual which can be intrinsically "sensed". Hence, males may have good indirect information about the state of their display traits.
From the perspective of males not being cognitively aware of their own state, the level/intensity of display is likely to have co-evolved with a set of behaviors that maximize the advertisement of the display. In other words, if two males have the same level of display (e.g. a red creston their head) the males that erect those feathers and wave them around are more likely to be noticed and selected by females as mates (presuming females have a preference for red crests). Hence males need not have any awareness of their own display level yet exhibit very elaborate display behaviors that show off their display by co-evolution of behaviors and morphology.
There are many other answers, some of which lay between the two answers I gave, but I hope that helps shed some light on how male traits can be selected for by females even though males cannot sense their own level of display directly.
About genetics of attractiveness and visual constraints: Given the position of the eyes, it is unlikely that individual fish can see their own body shape and body colours. Despite these visual constraints, there is strong attractiveness towards individuals sharing the same body shape and body colours having consequences for social organisation. The simplest explanation is a strong genetic basis for attractiveness of body shape/body colours at the within species level or a strong genetic basis of avoidance of body shape or colours that are not matched between individuals. Are in these conditions additional experiments required to show a genetic basis for attractiveness used in the context of sexual selection? Just to stimulate discussion.
Conspecific attractiveness in matched phenotypes without having visual access to own external phenotype (e.g. body shape, body colour) will probably be more easily explained by genetics (genetics of the perception mechanism influencing attractiveness) than by imprinting on parental traits (learned). Or not?
Theory related to male-female 'arms-races' or what some might call 'intersexual conflicts' or others wildlife psychology could predict that females wish to hide why they choose sexual or social partners. One example might be that females evolutionary select traits in body parts of male partners that the male partners cannot visually perceive.
By the way, why do some cultures impose that body parts of partners are hidden? Is there a biology-based or evolutionary explanation available?
Hiding body parts and information constraints: Bearers can decide to hide own body parts they can see themselves. This is much more complicated for own body parts they cannot see. Why hiding information for which there is no access?
The human case: Bearers may decide to use cloths to hide body parts they can see themselves with or without the use of mirrors.
What has been the impact of mirrors in the evolution of human social relationships compared to function and evolution of social relationships in wildlife not having access to mirrors?
Respected Sir as i am not from this subject area so cant say much as the experts can tell but can say this is very nice question and discussion and comment given so far.
Thank you all.
Dear Moharana,
The goal is to share ideas/stimulate thinking, also in fields that people not always truly master from the beginning. This also can happen when professors, research directors and students propose new topics with new model species in the framework of Master or PhD programs, e.g. to avoid that different students will work on the same topics.
Think about a simple experiment:
Stage 1: You rear individual fertilised fish eggs from species X in isolation randomizing the aquarium environment (e.g. water content or other external stimuli). In half of the aquaria you place a mirror so that the individual fish can see their own development and external phenotype. In the other aquaria without mirrors, it is made impossible that the individual fish can see their own phenotype and development process.
Stage 2: Choice experiments where the individual fish reared in isolation with versus without a mirror are confronted with own species X versus other species Y.
What will be the conclusions when there is no difference in bias in preference/attractiveness towards species X in the fish that were reared with versus without a mirror?
Dear Cecilia/All,
Many fish build nests and express forms of parental care, apparently especially in sweet water environments where environmental conditions vary more than in more uniform sea environments.
In vertebrates, including birds, scientists make a distinction between socially-based fidelity (social monogamy) and biology-based fidelity (children from one father versus children from more than one father) largely differing across species.
How would humans dress themselves in the absence of mirrors? In a world without mirrors, will social partners play a key role in how to dress, which also might bias social interactions towards those favored by the social partner in social networks?
Are perfumes designed to hide pheromones?
Historical question: Is there a relationship between the timing of the invention of mirrors and the timing of the invention of clothes or clothes characteristics used to attract/seduce others?
Historical considerations: What about water as a mirror and the interpretation of reflectance patterns for those that looked into water for self verification?
Dear Kamal,
I´m not sure, that peacocks really enjoy their colors. I think evolution and selection are the main motivs to develop such a wonderful outfit.
Dear Cecilia,
Male birds display (gestures, vocalizations), resembling any aspect in human sports (physical, mental). Females watch the performers, and decide what to do. In some species the opposite may occur. Female birds display (gestures, vocalizations), resembling any aspect in human sports (physical, mental). Males watch the performers, and decide what to do.
- The central point is, do they see themselves or just see a competitor?
It is clear that in sexually reproducing species, we see both physiological and behavioral differences between the sexes. For example, in many bird species, the male is more brightly colored than the female, and in mammals, we see males possessing very large canine teeth, manes, or horns/antlers/tusks that females do not have.
Some of these differences between the sexes cannot be explained from the simple physiological necessities of successful reproduction (which could be explained by natural selection). For example, a male bird of paradise could father a successful clutch if his elaborate plume was plucked and a male red deer could sire many offspring if his antlers were sawn off. Why do males of so many species have elaborate characteristics?
These traits are adaptations in that they allow for gaining mating access to females; that is the plumes of a bird attract the female and the antlers of a deer allow him to fight for access to a harem of females. Over time, evolution has selected and exaggerated traits that already existed in a species, and made them more and more noticeable; however since the purpose of these exaggerations is to either attract or compete for a mate, even very differing sets of characteristics can be compared in terms of selective processes that produced the traits between species (the assumption that similar selective forces will result in similar adaptations). For example, the antlers of a red deer and the claws of a fiddler crab are essentially the same thing; that is, they are a weapon that allows access to females because of male-male competition.
http://facultypages.morris.umn.edu/~meeklesr/sexualselection.html
Concerning attraction to mirror images, this might be social attractiveness (e.g. like in fish forming schools) or territorial behavior (like in a bird,fish).
In certain bird species, territorial behavior peaks during certain moments of the year. The prediction therefore is that birds will only go to 'fight' the mirror image during certain periods of the year.
Thus, the published literature describes many so-called sexually selected strategies in a proximate and evolutionary framework:
These include?
1) Non-cryptic male-male contest reflected in male armaments, fight, threats, displays, endurance rivalry, male coalitions
2) Male sexual coercion reflected in punishment, infanticide, forced copulation, harassment
3) Anti-coercion strategies reflected in resistance strategies (avoidance, hiding, masculinization) or acceptance strategies (exposed signs of fertility, exposed protest, abortion, acceptance of forced copulation)
4) Female choice
5) 'Attraction' male strategies reflected in good parent indicators, courtship, quality advertisement, male ornaments
6) Non-cryptic female-female contest reflected in female armaments, fight, threat displays
7) Male choice
8) 'Attraction' female strategies reflected in good parent indicators, sex invitation, quality advertisement, female ornaments
9) Female sexual coercion reflected in punishment, infanticide, forced copulation, harassment
10) Cryptic female choice reflected in sperm selection, reproductive tract adaptations
11) Sperm competition reflected in the forms/shape of the gonads, sperm displacement, intromittent organ evolution
12) Mate guarding reflected in passive, contact or non-contact behavior
Proximate and evolutionary transitions between these different mechanisms of sexual selection have been proposed. Mechanisms vary both within versus between species.
Medical doctors, judges and lawyers have to cope with several of the mechanisms of sexual selection listed above, or not? Many examples highlighted in video games, movies, television journals, etc.
Concerning cryptic sexual selection processes and dreams:
Do you think that the formation and use of dream images are examples of cryptic sexual selection, or not?
Can dreams reveal hidden parts of the phenotypic/behavioral traits from other people including potential mates or rivals, or not?
Do dreams reflect mental secondary sexually selected traits, or not?
Can dreams that result from past experiences/impressions represent the different forms of sexual selection mechanisms listed above?
Example:
Dream expression might also be considered as a form of social communication or might result from visible or invisible communication networks when dreams are shared among dreamers. People might be more attracted to persons that provoke pleasant dreams. Thus dreams expressed at night might influence how people behave or communicate during the day.
No, dreams are the consequence of selling special phenotypes as desirable by commerce, education and examples. Just imagine as example the phenotypes of adolescents.
But senders can provoke dreams in receivers influencing social relationships between senders and receivers, or not? The dream perceived by the receiver might be considered as an extended phenotype of the sender making use of the brain characteristics of the receiver, or not?
I think this description defines dreams as existing reality. I´m not sure that dreams are not only projections, often not correlated to reality and nearly ever not controlled by the dreamer. And who shall send the input for my sometimes strange dreamings?
It personally known (own observations) that there is a relationship between experiences during the day and dream expressions at night, which would imply that the environment of experience will influence dream expressions in receivers.
Interesting is that my own experiences can be reflected in the dreams of my wife/spouce based on what she tells me.
Perhaps the strength of this relationship between dream senders and dream receivers differs between senders and/or receivers?
Dear Marcel,
you are right. Daily experience is sometimes transformed to dreams. But the question here is, are the phenotypical dreams an extension and enhancement of the real phenotypes, which are supposed to impress females in their choice of males. My opinion is "no". For humans you can read my arguements some posts ago. For animals I can´t imagine any mechanism which could impress females by dreams instead of the existing and dancing, posing, strong and dominant beeing reality.
This also happens in males in the reincarnation of secondary sexual characteristics in females. This phenomenon is not general, but it occurs in some females because of sexual deviations, or because of the type of education or their curiosity.
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