Runaway Sexual Selection Simulation Game

 

Tested Studies in Laboratory Teaching, 2012, Volume 33

Marlene Zuk, Lawrence S. Blumer, & Brian Gray

Abstract

Sexual selection was proposed by Charles Darwin as a special form of selection that could result from either competition between members of one sex for the opposite sex (typically male-male competition) or selective mate choice by one sex for the opposite sex (typically female choice). The process by which female choice may yield the elaborate modification of male traits, e.g. bright colors or large display morphology, that are attractive to females has appropriately been called runaway selection. Runaway selection occurs because female choice may induce rapid and extreme directional evolutionary change in male traits. We present an easily conducted simulation game that makes the dynamics of runaway selection clear and can improve student understanding of this important evolutionary process. The role of random mutation in the process of evolution by sexual selection and the factors that set limits on runaway selection also are introduced in the simulation.

Keywords:  simulation, evolution, selection

New Mexico State University (2011)