Proceedings. Biological sciences
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Most theoretical models on evolution of male secondary sexual characters and female preferences for these characters suggest that the male characters evolve in response to female preferences that may themselves evolve in response to direct or indirect benefits of choice. In Drosophila montana (a species of the D. virilis group), females use male song in their mate choice, preferring males that produce songs with short sound pulses and a high carrier frequency. ⋯ Male wing centroid asymmetry did not correlate with male wing song characters, nor with female egg production nor the fitness of her progeny, suggesting that fluctuating asymmetry in male wings does not play a major role in sexual signalling. The fact that the male song gives the female information on the male's condition/genetic quality in D. montana suggests that in this species the evolution of female preferences for male song characters could have evolved through condition-dependent viability selection presented in some 'good genes' models.