When sexual selection through mate choice depletes versus exaggerates genetic variation: Unraveling the lek paradox

Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Volume 123, Number 16, April 2026.
ImportanceThe “lek paradox”: the dissonance between a hypothetical loss of variation in sexual presentation traits due to mate choice, leading to the subsequent cessation of sexual selection, and the evidence of high variation in these traits and persistence…