Question

"Trade-offs are a critical component to understanding ecology and evolution. Organisms are limited by in their environment by a number of factors, including energy. This is where we find the most common trade-offs. Where allocation to one factor comes at the cost of another. For example, a bird cannot increase the number of eggs in a clutch, without it decreasing the size of an egg. In sexual selection, there is a tradeoff between the benefits of a trait for attracting a female and the cost of increased attraction by predators. How would you draw this graphically (in general)? Draw a figure that shows the trade-off for traits that are beneficial for mate choice, but costly in terms of predation."

Answer 1

For any trait that helps in mate selection and is a factor to attract more predators at the same time will lead to a graph which is having predation pressure in the X axis and sexual success rate in the Y axis. In general the graph will look like this:

At first the curve will increase sharply depending on the trait characteristics and after reaching a point the curve would reach to a plateau because there are other factors such as limited number of mates available or environmental factors.