Publications

an invasion of cheats; the evolution of worthless nuptial gifts.	nuptial gifts are food items or inedible tokens that are transferred to females during courtship or copulation . tokens are of no direct value to females, and it is unknown why females require such worthless gifts as a precondition of mating. one hypothesis is that token giving arose in species that gave nutritious gifts and males exploited female preferences for nutritional gifts by substituting more easily obtainable but worthless items. an invasion of such behavior would require that females ...	2005	15649367
sexual selection in the gift-giving dance fly, rhamphomyia sulcata, favors small males carrying small gifts.	in some species of insects males transfer a gift to females during courtship or copulation. in the dance flies these nuptial gifts vary from nutritious prey items to inedible tokens such as a leaf, stone, or silk balloon. nuptial gifts in dance flies are presumed to increase male mating success. we examined the strength and form of sexual selection on male rhamphomyia sulcata, an empidid in which males provide females with a nutritious prey item as a nuptial gift. we found that whereas large mal ...	2004	15446428