Journal
TRENDS IN ECOLOGY & EVOLUTION
Volume 25, Issue 5, Pages 292-300Publisher
ELSEVIER SCIENCE LONDON
DOI: 10.1016/j.tree.2009.11.003
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The ubiquity of multiple signalling is a long-standing puzzle in the study of animal communication: given the costs of producing and receiving signals, why use more than a single cue? Focusing on sexually selected signals, I argue that dynamic variation in selection pressures can often explain why multiple signals coexist. In contrast to earlier research, which has taken a largely static view of the world, new insights highlight how fluctuations in ecological and social environments, as well as non-equilibrium dynamics intrinsic to coevolutionary systems, can maintain both multiple redundant and non-redundant signals. Future challenges will include identifying the circumstances under which environmental fluctuations lead to multiple signalling, and the consequences of such fluctuations for speciation in multiple-signalling species.
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