Talk:Assortative mating

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Old talk
The expression assortative mating is common in discussions of evolution. It can be found in the glossaries of most textbooks on evolution and on general biology. My intention was to go through a glossary of a good evolutionary textbook and make sure all the terms are available also in Wikipedia. Isn't this a worthy strategy? See also George R. Price. Yes, I do intend to expand on the article. What is the motivation for deleting it? Etxrge 19:43, 28 Oct 2004 (UTC)


 * This addition is merely a dictionary entry or at most a small stub. If you plan more for it, make sure that it's a worthy article before posting it, or at least put a 'stub' tag in it, so that others realize that it has further development possibilities. CB Droege 14:16, 29 Oct 2004 (UTC)

2018
Maybe it should be worth mentioning that intelligent people tend to have relationships with people with similar intelligence than random(intelligence is partly heritable). As well as mentioning intelligence, attractiveness also show some correlation between partners. And maybe it would be worth mentioning that people with positive characteristics will look for a mate with more/similar quantity of positive traits, picky attractive animals will mate with other picky attractive animals. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 80.189.212.151 (talk) 14:45, 1 December 2018 (UTC)

speedy delete
One way or another, this article is not a candidate for speedy deletion. I wikified it some and added a stub tag. Lachatdelarue [[User talk:Lachatdelarue|(talk)]] 14:53, 29 Oct 2004 (UTC)

This should be a separate stub, assortive mating is a key term in evolution biology.

Eugenics?

 * <>

I cut this comment to the Talk Page because I doubt that there is a published scholar who relates Eugenics to Assortative mating. Am I wrong? Can you cite the scholar who relates Eugenics to Assortative mating? ---Rednblu | Talk 07:50, 11 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Chin morphology?
It looks like vandalism, it tastes like vandalism... but then again, what do I know? --Smári McCarthy 15:48, 16 May 2006 (UTC)

Non-random Mating
suggesting that assortative mating also be called non-random mating. S. Jason Adkins 22:14, 19 February 2007 (UTC)


 * See the summary of my recent edit. Samsara (talk • contribs) 03:34, 20 February 2007 (UTC)

respectively
I think (but I'm not competent to assume) "therefore these two types of assortative mating have the effect of reducing and expanding the range of variation, respectively" should read "therefore these two types of assortative mating have the effect of expanding and reducing the range of variation, respectively" ... surely it's POSITIVE AM that expands variation?

RE: Respectively concerning contextual contradictions
Agreed.

"reducing and expanding the range of variation"

Implying AM variation expands while reducing itself simultaneously, is mutually exclusive, recursively polar, and highly illogical.

Merge
I think this and disassortative mating should be covered under one article; they're both very small (especially the latter) and are just "two sides of the same coin". It could either maintain the current title or be called assortative and disassortative mating, or something like that. Perhaps a slightly broader article would be even better (perhaps mate choice?), I don't know. Richard001 (talk) 10:25, 31 October 2008 (UTC)
 * Can also throw in Stabilizing selection and Disruptive selection to this discussion. Shyamal (talk) 11:52, 31 October 2008 (UTC)

I also think that it would be benifical to combine the articles into one larger more encompasing article firekragg (talk) 7:52, 18 February 2011


 * Nothing against that, but I think sexual selection is something principally different and should not be merged with assortative resp. disassortative mating. Sexual selection refers to the meaning of sexuality for evolutionary changes in general; assortative / disassortative mating has to do with the resemblance of single individuals in connection to how much they interbrede, whilst the sexuality aspect is, at the end, not noteworthy, here, at all. Regarding the title, I`d say the best would be to let it be assortative mating and to redirect the headword disassortative mating there. --Hans Dunkelberg (talk) 16:50, 19 February 2011 (UTC)


 * I realize I am far late to the discussion, but maybe someone can explain: what is the difference between "negative assortative mating" and "disassortative mating"? Weeb Dingle (talk) 18:42, 28 April 2019 (UTC)

Way too much Lazy Hyperlinking here
Hyperlinking is not carte blanche for unexplained jargon usage (poor English). Usually a few suggestive in-context words are far better and less disruptive. Example:
 * Assortative mating has been invoked to explain sympatric speciation. For some populations....

Lazy Hyperlinking can be detected by the appearance of author laziness...the lack of any attempt to save his victim from disruptive hyperlinking. Excessive hyperlinking can also be caused by....Never mind. --69.110.91.98 (talk) 01:09, 6 August 2011 (UTC)Doug Bashford

Effect on allele frequency and homozygosity
I believe this line in the intro is wrong: "Assortative mating does not change the frequency of individual alleles, but increases the proportion of homozygous individuals. By contrast, disassortative mating results in a greater number of heterozygotes." Assortative mating can change allele frequency when there is polygyny, or unequal number of male and females. It can cause sexual selection on alleles. Furthermore, assortative mating do not increase homozygosity when basing on a non-heritable phenotype. Yel D&#39;ohan (talk) 17:12, 21 October 2014 (UTC)

spider picture
Can the giant picture of the spider be removed? It can cause people with arachnophobia to have severe negative reactions and doesn't really need to be there nor is it expected when you click on the link. No kidding. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.40.110.240 (talk) 17:37, 25 April 2017 (UTC)
 * Done. Seems like a reasonable request and that picture doesn't add any particular value to this article. Mitch Ames (talk) 12:01, 26 April 2017 (UTC)

A joke, surely?
The editor who removed the spider picture was played by a troll, there is no way such a ludicrous request was meant to be taken seriously. Although we do live in strange times and there is a slight chance the request was meant to be take at face value. It is a bit worrying that the editor not only promptly removed the image (which, contrary to the opinion offered by the troll, was not out of place as spiders do mate) but also stated that he thinks it "seems like a reasonable request". Really? So if I claim to have a leaf beetle or Japanese common toad phobia and want the photos of these frightening beasts removed from the article (I was expecting a picture of humans mating, not BUGS and a TOAD!) that is a reasonable request?

It would be great if editors thought through the implications of giving in to the whims of trolls and unreasonable people before taking action. My sister was killed in an automobile accident, please, no pictures of cars! I almost drowned in a swimming pool when I was three years-old, please, no pictures of water! I get really nervous around members of the opposite sex, please, no pictures of sexually mature human females!

Perhaps even a decade ago my concerns could be dismissed as hyperbolic overreaction but much has changed since then. Editors of science articles on Wikipedia really ought to know better and refrain from encouraging the already quite radical solipsistic tendencies that are increasingly prevalent in Western society. And finally...I know a person with an acute phobia of snakes who, as one might imagine, is terrified of encountering the slithering reptiles in the wild, in a zoo or in a private home or public urban space. However, a photographic representation of a snake in a textbook or on a web page does not trigger a phobic episode and the slight anxiety it might provoke can easily be quelled by taking a deep breath and, in extreme cases, by averting the eyes and looking elsewhere on the page. User2346 (talk) 10:29, 18 May 2017 (UTC)

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Anthropocentric View
Hi everybody, based on my reading of the article, it feels unequally developed. There seems to be a heavy focus on the application of assortative mating in humans, rather than animals. More examples of more diverse animals using this strategy could be helpful. More pictures could also help make the article more interesting to look at and read. Overall, I agree with past Wikipedians that it may be a good idea to merge this article with disassortative mating. Merging would allow readers to compare concepts and it would help develop both articles. Gpappy (talk) 17:12, 18 October 2020 (UTC)

Causes
The Causes section should list additional theoretical evolutionary functions of assortative mating; Richardbrucebaxter (talk) 11:18, 12 November 2021 (UTC)
 * Speciation (e.g. https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/rspb.2010.1174, https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/abs/10.1086/705825)
 * Fitness (e.g. https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1420-9101.2012.02466.x)