'Good genes' models assume that females can use a signal such as mating eff
ort to assess a male's lifetime fitness. Inferring long-term performance fr
om short-term behavioural observations can be unreliable, and repeated samp
ling may be needed for more accurate assessment of males. Additionally, if
sexual advertisement is viewed as a life-history trait subject to trade-off
s, reliable comparison of mates should yield information on all life-histor
y components rather than on one trait value in one season. We show that in
the lekking black grouse (Tetrao tetrix), a male's success is best explaine
d by assuming that females are informed of the past history of males up to
the beginning of the study (eight years). Much of this extremely lasting 'm
emory' can be attributed to females observing long-term outcomes of male-ma
le competition: current territory position is the only momentarily observab
le variable that has high power in predicting female choice, and it correla
tes to a male's past lekking effort on a cumulative lifetime scale. We conc
lude that females can use territory position as a signal that conveys infor
mation of a male's lifetime performance that combines lekking effort and lo
ngevity. Females may thus overcome the problem of male allocations varying
in time, without the need to pay costs associated with repeated sampling.