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Katharina Riebel, Comment on Boogert et al.: mate choice for cognitive traits or cognitive traits for mate choice?, Behavioral Ecology, Volume 22, Issue 3, May-June 2011, Pages 460–461, https://doi.org/10.1093/beheco/arr003
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Should animals choose clever mates? In a stimulating review, Boogert, Fawcett, and Lefebvre (BFL) evaluate the evidence for enhanced cognitive performance as an indicator trait, whether females choose such males and what potential benefits might arise from doing so. Their survey reveals that our studies on mate choice so far were not designed to answer these questions but provide enough clues to have BFL rightly call for more integration of sexual selection and animal cognition studies. They furbish this call with a catalog of research questions, which I would like to complement by asking whether there can be sexual selection for cognitive traits without enhanced cognitive traits for such choices.
As BFL point out, where cognition improves an animal's condition, female choice for enhanced cognition will be hard to disentangle from choice for enhanced condition on the basis of correlated indicator traits. A real-world example for this is the link between improved quality of diet and intensity of carotinoid-based nuptial colorations—whereas the former would require protracted observations to evaluate, the latter can be assessed at first glance. However, such indirect assessment is unlikely where the mate advertising signal itself is a cognitively demanding trait, such as bower building, birdsong, and manakin dancing, which require protracted individual or social learning to conform to or to excel population standards. These traits are sexual signals, meaning that they have evolved to convey a message to their intended receivers and that the receivers of these signals exert the selection pressures maintaining these traits.
