QUINN, V.S.*; HEWS, D.K.: Species variation in female preference for male behavioral and morphological signaling traits

Handicap and Fisherian run-away theories of sexual selection predict that male traits and female preferences for those traits have coevolved. Thus, gains or losses of male traits are coincident with female preferences for those male traits. However, sensory bias does not predict this coevolutionary pattern. We examined the coevolution of males and females in a phylogenetic context by comparing the responses of females to male traits in sister species of Sceloporus lizards by manipulating a pair of blue abdominal patches of skin. We measured female response in S. u. consobrinus, a lizard representing the ancestral and typical character state of sexual dimorphism. We also examined S. virgatus a species representing a derived character state, male loss of abdominal coloration. We presented females with pairs of male conspecifics, one with blue-painted patches and the other with white-painted patches. Female S. u. consobrinus, did not preferentially associate or copulate with males based on abdominal coloration, but did preferentially associate with the first male to display. Female S. virgatus associated with and were mounted by white-painted more than blue-painted males. These data suggest that female responses to abdominal coloration have not coevolved with losses of this male signal in these species.