The evolution of courtship rituals in monogamous species

In this paper we propose an alternative explanation for the evolution of co urtship rituals in monogamous species. We demonstrate, using computer simul ations, how male courtship might develop as males exploit response biases i n females to manipulate the female into starting reproduction before she ha s been able to assess the male's intentions. In our coevolutionary simulati ons, a recurrent, artificial neural network is used to model the female rec ognition mechanism, while the displaying male is represented by a sequence of signals. Our particular model situation is just one example of how a rep roductive conflict could result in the evolution of ritualized displays in monogamous species. Since reproductive conflicts occur even after pair form ations, the explanation we propose may also apply to rituals that occur aft er pair formation.