ier and have features that are even more exaggerated, and they pass these traits on to their children in a process known as the runaway process, and so on.Intersexual selection favors three main traits among males; those traits that increase the fitness of their mates, indicate good genes, therefore increasing the fitness of the offspring, and those traits that make them more noticeable to females. Females will tend to choose to mate with males that have traits that confer direct benefits on them, such as the ability to defend superior territories, protect the offspring, and provision the young better. In some insects, for example, females will only copulate with males that provide a large amount of food during courtship. The ability of the male to bring food during courtship indicates his ability to provide for the young. Another preference that females have in the selection of mates is desirable genes. An example of this is the number of eyespots that a male peacock’s tail has. A large number of spots tend to represent better health. Though the female is only attracted to the tail’s appearance, by choosing the male with the most eyespots, the peahen is inadvertently choosing a male with a desirable genotype. Lastly, females may prefer males with distinctive traits, even though they do not increase male fitness directly. Many times these traits are considered burdensome because in most cases they get in the way of survival. A good example is the male frogs call. The frog whose croaks are most readily heard are most likely to get more mates. If the females can hear a certain frog’s calls over all the others, so can predators. This makes them more susceptible to predation.Females are a scarce resource for which males compete. For this reason, many aspects of male courtship can be understood by this competition. It can also help account for the seemingly burdensome traits that evolve in many species throug...
