The handicap principle was originally proposed to resolve the question of why, in their competition for mates, certain species invest in exaggerated ornaments that are often detrimental to their survival. Zahavi suggested that the traits that are most suitable to serve as signals are precisely those that require the burden of extra investment to increase in magnitude: that burden enables the signal to be correlated with the signaler’s quality. According to his model, the additional investment in signaling results in a functional advantage. It does so by providing more accurate information regarding the signaler as it increases the distinction between males of similar quality. There are a number of formalizations of this model, and experimental studies of the handicap principle have focused on testing them. Nonetheless, there is little consensus whether 1) ensuring reliability requires an additional investment or 2) traits that require a relatively higher investment to increase (have higher marginal costs) are selected as signals over those with lower marginal costs. Here, we present an agent-based mate choice model that quantifies the relative stability of signals with different marginal costs. Our model demonstrates how quality-independent constraints (in signal production and perception) affect the range of marginal costs for which a signal is informative. In turn, receiver preference for informative signals drives the selection of signals according to marginal cost. The presence or absence of signaling constraints can determine the outcome of costly signaling models and, thus, explain the different conclusions of Zahavi’s verbal model and its subsequent formalizations.

中文翻译：

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信令约束在定义可靠信号的最佳边际成本中的作用

最初提出了让步原则，以解决以下问题：为什么某些物种在竞争同伴时会投资于夸张的装饰物，而这些装饰物通常不利于其生存。Zahavi建议，最适合用作信号的特征恰好是那些需要额外投资负担以增加幅度的特征：这种负担使信号与信号质量相关联。根据他的模型，对信令的额外投资将带来功能优势。它通过提供有关信号器的更准确的信息来做到这一点，因为它增加了质量相似的雄性之间的区别。此模型有很多形式化形式，并且让步原理的实验研究集中在测试它们上。尽管如此，对于选择1）确保可靠性需要额外的投资还是2）需要相对较高的投资来增加（具有较高的边际成本）的特征被选择为具有较低边际成本的特征，几乎没有共识。在这里，我们提出了一种基于代理的伴侣选择模型，该模型可以量化具有不同边际成本的信号的相对稳定性。我们的模型演示了与质量无关的约束（在信号产生和感知中）如何影响信号可提供的边际成本范围。反过来，接收者对信息信号的偏爱驱动了根据边际成本的信号选择。信令约束条件的存在与否可以确定昂贵的信令模型的结果，因此，