$$B\,\beta_p$$

Equation 11 · Evolutionary Biology

The Peacock Problem: Darwin's Second Theory and Its Hard Tests

This mathematical expression combines the displayed quantities; its precise role follows from the surrounding article text.

Read the first line on its own and the trait looks stable: natural selection ( $\beta_t$ ) pulls the ornament back down every generation. But the second term, B\,$\beta_p$ , imports a push from the preference side through the genetic covariance the mating system itself has created. When B is large enough relative to the stabilising pull of $\beta_t$ , the two equations no longer settle to a fixed point; they feed each other, and $\bar t$ and $\bar p$ escalate together until some external limit — a wing that can no longer lift the tail, a display that finally costs more than it wins — brings the pair to a halt. Nothing in the equations names where that limit falls. That absence of an internal stopping…

Meanings in this article

• $B$: the when.

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