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We studied mate selection mechanisms in the tomato fruit borer moth Neoleucinodes elegantalis, and we found that males and females tended to mate monogamously. Males chose a female according to the blend of her sex pheromone, and they preferred heavier females for mating. Females that produced the preferred blend of the sex pheromone were heavier and had larger wings. Heavier males were more likely to initiate flight sooner and to be the first to copulate with the female. These results suggest that females compete for faster-responding males by producing an attractive blend of sex pheromone, and that males compete for females that synthesize the more attractive sex pheromone blend by responding to the calling female faster. We propose that the pheromone blend preferred by males constitutes a signal reflecting the genetic and physiological quality of the female that is difficult to achieve for biosynthetic reasons. We found that a synthetic ‘supernormal’ pheromone blend was more effective in attracting males than was the pheromone produced by calling females, thus providing a useful means of mass trapping of males (e.g. to control infestations in tomato plantations). The results support theoretical predictions that mate selection behaviour in both sexes regulates most sexual encounters, even those modulated by sex pheromones. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Mate selection strategies may be as important, or even more important, to the evolutionary process than natural selection. The practical importance of strategies such as the selection for "good genes" and assortative mating is emerging in both theoretical and experimental biology. Several other mate selection strategies are possible, although little is known about them. Here I explore the range of diverse mate selection strategies known to us, both from theory and observation of nature, and the analogies between the dynamic properties of mate selection strategies in biological evolution and those of partner selection strategies in game theory and economics evolutionary theory. The aim of this exploration is not to review the extensive literature on the subject, but to detect research agendas that might help us in our understanding of the dynamic consequences of mate (partner) selection strategies in biology, economy, artificial intelligence, and sociology. Insight into the working of diverse mate selection strategies might eventually even increase our understanding of the biological basis for beauty and the adaptive value of love. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Studies assortative mating for age nationality, educational level and occupational level in married and unmarried parents to test evolutionary models explaining mate selection among humans. Use of the marriage and birth registers of the Venezuelan population to compare recently married, fertile married and fertile unmarried couples.