Mating success in lekking males: a meta-analysis

Traits that are correlated with mating success are likely to be subject to sexual selection. In lekking species, a male's mating success can be estimated as the number of females that he copulates with. Earlier reviews of sexual selection in lekking species have been inconclusive, suggesting that different traits may be important in different species. To obtain a more complete understanding of the outcome of sexual selection in this mating system, we performed a meta-analysis in which we combined the results from different studies across a wide variety of taxa. Our aim was to synthesize available information about correlates of male mating success in lekking species. We found that behavioral traits such as male display activity, aggression rate, and lek attendance were positively correlated with male mating success. Further, territory position was negatively correlated with male mating success, such that males with territories close to the geometric center of the leks had higher mating success than other males. The size of "extravagant" traits, such as birds tails and ungulate antlers, and age were positively correlated with male mating success. Male morphology (measure of body size) and territory size showed small effects on male mating success. Our results confirm some of the suggestions put forward by earlier reviews but add more rigor to the conclusions drawn. Part of the variation across studies still remain unaccounted for. Further studies are needed to perform proper meta-analyses that can take factors like phylogeny and sexual dimorphism into account.