Economic logic explains weapon evolution across virtually all animal species

Evidence

It turns out that in essentially every animal species with extreme male weapons the explanation is the same, and it comes from the logic of economics. — Emlen, Douglas J, Animal Weapons_ The Evolution of Battle, 198

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: The same three ingredients trigger weapon evolution across wildly divergent animal clades; The evolutionary drivers of animal weapons also explain human weapon elaboration. — Emlen, Douglas J, Animal Weapons_ The Evolution of Battle, 7; Weapon evolution needs both competition and economically defensible resources — Emlen, Douglas J, Animal Weapons_ The Evolution of Battle, 191 (+17 more)

Related

• Weapons evolve only when reproductive benefits exceed costs (similarity 0.90)
• Competition for reproduction drives evolution of nature’s biggest weapons (similarity 0.89)
• Scarcity of suitable feeding sites drives weapon evolution in harlequin beetles (similarity 0.87)
• Weapon evolution needs both competition and economically defensible resources (similarity 0.87)
• Extreme weapons evolved independently across roughly three thousand species (similarity 0.86)
• The evolutionary drivers of animal weapons also explain human weapon elaboration. (similarity 0.86)
• The same three ingredients trigger weapon evolution across wildly divergent animal clades (similarity 0.86)
• Specific ecological circumstances must align before weapon arms races begin (similarity 0.85)
• Social competition environments evolve in tandem with weapons, unlike fluctuating physical environments (similarity 0.84)
• Variation in animal weapon size is explainable by species ecology and behavior. (similarity 0.83)
• Weapon evolution is judged by competition among designs, not human survival (similarity 0.83)
• Predator diversity is best explained by weapon adaptation to habitat and prey (similarity 0.83)
• Identical triggers drive extreme weapon evolution across wildly unrelated clades (similarity 0.83)
• Weapon growth widens the gap between the best- and worst-armed males. (similarity 0.83)
• Weapon size in animal species is under stabilizing selection, not open-ended directional selection (similarity 0.83)

Broader Connections

• Scarcity of suitable feeding sites drives weapon evolution in harlequin beetles #exemplifies (0.70) — Emlen, Douglas J, Animal Weapons_ The Evolution of Battle, 206