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Mate choice copying
Strategy used by organisms / From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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Mate-choice copying, or non-independent mate choice, occurs when an individual of an animal species copies another individual's mate choice.[1] In other words, non-independent mate-choice is when an individual's sexual preferences get socially inclined toward the mate choices of other individuals.[1] This behavior is speculated to be one of the driving forces of sexual selection and the evolution of male traits.[1] It is also hypothesized that mate-choice copying can induce speciation due to the selective pressure for certain, preferred male qualities.[2] Moreover, mate-choice copying is one form of social learning in which animals behave differently depending on what they observe in their surrounding environment.[3] In other words, the animals tend to process the social stimuli they receive by observing the behavior of their conspecifics and execute a similar behavior to what they observed.[4] Mate choice copying has been found in a wide variety of different species, including (but not limited to): invertebrates, like the common fruit fly (Drosophila melanogaster);[5][6] fish, such as guppies (Poecilia reticulata)[7] and ocellated wrasse;[1] birds, like the black grouse;[8] and mammals, such as the Norway rat (Rattus norvegicus)[9] and humans.[10] Most studies have focused on females, but male mate copying has been also found in sailfin mollies (Poecilia latipinna)[11] and humans.[10]
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