Weapons disappear when fights stop being duels over defensible resources

Evidence

By 1914, it was clear even to the British that despite their grandeur, battleships were not going to prove decisive in battles. They’d been designed to fight other battleships, but such engagements almost never materialized and, as deterrents, they had become obsolete. Although battleships remained a part of naval fleets for many years afterward, their prestigious role as monarch of the seas was over, and the few that remained in service ended up supporting a newer and better weapon, the aircraft carrier. — Emlen, Douglas J, Animal Weapons_ The Evolution of Battle, 456 (#corroborates, via linked claim)

In a sense, males compete with rival males regardless of whether sexual selection proceeds through female choice or male competition and, in many respects, the process—the intensity, consistency, and social nature of selection—is the same regardless. Why, then, do some species embark on a trajectory of overt competition leading to the evolution of weapons, while others end up dancing or singing with displays? Here is where the ingredients for arms races come into play, for these are the pieces that must fall into place if sexual selection is to trigger evolution of extreme weapons. The first ingredient is competition, the essence of all sexual selection. The second is economic defensibility. — Emlen, Douglas J, Animal Weapons_ The Evolution of Battle, 191 (#expands, via linked claim)

Imagine a food resource spread out uniformly across a landscape—grass, if you’re a grazer, extending as far as the eye can see. As a male, where would you stand guard? Even if it were absolutely necessary for females to visit places with grass to feed, and even if they were willing to mate with you if you happened to be there when they fed, where would that location be? For food resources broadly distributed in space, there is no obvious location that is better than any other. It would be impossible for a male to anticipate where females were likely to visit since they could find their food anywhere. A male could still invest in the production of weapons, and he could use his weapons to deflect rivals from a patch of turf. But why should he bother to guard one particular area if all of the surrounding areas are just as good? And why should he pay the price of producing a weapon and fighting, if other males without weapons or territories do just as well as he does? In the parlance of economists, such behavior would not be cost-effective. — Emlen, Douglas J, Animal Weapons_ The Evolution of Battle, 201 (#corroborates, via linked claim)

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Dominant weapons become obsolete when their intended fights never occur — Emlen, Douglas J, Animal Weapons_ The Evolution of Battle, 456; Losing the ecological context of competition can make extreme weapons vanish. — Emlen, Douglas J, Animal Weapons_ The Evolution of Battle, 438; Big weapons only pay off when fights are one-on-one duels — Emlen, Douglas J, Animal Weapons_ The Evolution of Battle, 238 (+5 more)

Related

• Dominant weapons become obsolete when their intended fights never occur (similarity 0.89)
• Weapon evolution needs both competition and economically defensible resources (similarity 0.88)
• Losing the ecological context of competition can make extreme weapons vanish. (similarity 0.87)
• Clumped sparse resources make territorial fighting pay off reproductively (similarity 0.85)
• Weapons evolve only when reproductive benefits exceed costs (similarity 0.85)
• Uniformly distributed resources make territorial weapons uneconomical (similarity 0.84)
• Pair bonding removes the competitive conditions that drive weapon evolution. (similarity 0.84)
• Intense competition without duel structure does not drive weapon evolution. (similarity 0.84)
• Specific conditions are required before weapons escalate into an arms race (similarity 0.83)
• Dueling plus competition and defensibility is the general rule for extreme weapons (similarity 0.83)
• Clumped scarce resources make guarding territories economically worthwhile (similarity 0.82)
• Weapons primarily deter rivals rather than inflict harm in actual fights (similarity 0.82)
• Evenly distributed food resources make territorial fighting economically wasteful (similarity 0.82)
• Competition for reproduction drives evolution of nature’s biggest weapons (similarity 0.81)
• Weapons work primarily as deterrents that prevent fights rather than win them (similarity 0.81)

Broader Connections

• Dominant weapons become obsolete when their intended fights never occur #corroborates (0.70) — Emlen, Douglas J, Animal Weapons_ The Evolution of Battle, 456
• Weapon evolution needs both competition and economically defensible resources #expands (0.70) — Emlen, Douglas J, Animal Weapons_ The Evolution of Battle, 191
• Uniformly distributed resources make territorial weapons uneconomical #corroborates (0.65) — Emlen, Douglas J, Animal Weapons_ The Evolution of Battle, 201
• Losing the ecological context of competition can make extreme weapons vanish. #corroborates (0.60) — Emlen, Douglas J, Animal Weapons_ The Evolution of Battle, 438
• Clumped sparse resources make territorial fighting pay off reproductively #contradicts (0.55)
• Big weapons only pay off when fights are one-on-one duels #qualifies (0.40) — Emlen, Douglas J, Animal Weapons_ The Evolution of Battle, 238