The extent to which females differ in their mating preferences has important consequences for the evolution of male sexual traits; yet, the way in which female mating preferences vary remains largely unexplored in most animal taxa. Even less is known about the implications of this variation to...

Alternative male mating tactics are widespread, but the cues that determine which tactic is adopted remain unclear. Size is commonly associated with alternative mating tactics, but it is not known how individuals gauge their size effectively, especially given that size is relative and frequency...

Offspring of many animals signal their nutritional needs using conspicuous begging displays. Theoretical models for the evolution of begging suggest that costly begging signals provide an evolutionarily stable resolution to parent--offspring conflict because they provide parents with honest...

Scramble competition models of begging predict that junior nestlings will be more affected by food limitation than seniors. These models assume that food allocation is under offspring control and, hence, predict that this change in food distribution is caused by a differential behavioral...

In birds, nestling begging is often triggered by visual or acoustic stimuli from parents. Although begging occurs in some insects, it is not known whether it is triggered by specific parental stimuli. The burying beetle Nicrophorus vespilloides has attracted interest as an insect system for...