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The distribution and role of UV reflectant patterns in Scarab beetles (Coleoptera: Scarabaeidae)
Vlach, Jan ; Šípek, Petr (advisor) ; Kleisner, Karel (referee)
The diploma thesis is focused on the distribution and role of UV reflectant patterns in beetles (Coleoptera) with focus on the family Scarabaeidae. Through a survey of European museum collections, we discovered over 900 species of UV reflectant beetles, of which 850 species were identified as UV reflectant for the first time. The surface structures responsible for UV reflectant patterns in beetles were studied in detail using a scanning electron microscope. We have identified two ways how the UV reflectant patterns occur. The first way: the light rays interact with the internal structure of the cuticular formations or the cuticle itself; the second way: the light rays interact with the surface layer formed by cuticular secretion. Additionally we carried out experiments with live animals, where we investigated the effect of an individual's age on the intensity of UV reflectant patterns and the effect of UV reflectance on reproductive activity. In a pilot study we were able to show that freshly hatched individuals show a higher level of UV reflectance than older individuals.
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Role of body odour in partner relationship
Černý, David ; Kuncová, Lucie (advisor) ; Martinec Nováková, Lenka (referee)
Body odor is a good guide in mate choice, because it contains information such as the kinship, emotional state, or health condition of an individual, a person is able to perceive this information to a certain extent. The individual factors that affect the body odor will subsequently influence the preferences for the body odor as well. Those preferences are applied especially when seeking for a partner and at the beginning of the relationship. At the same time, however, it turns out that body odor affects even the process of partnership and the end of it. In the context of relationships and olfactory communication in humans, especially in the context of sexual life, the effect of pheromones is often discussed, which is the subject of the last chapter. The aim of the work is to gather and critically evaluate existing studies dealing with the role of body odor in the partnership and to suggest possible directions for further research. Keywords: smell, pheromones, partner preferences, mate choice
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Approach of Evolutionary Psychology to Research of Human Sexuality and Mate Choice
Binter, Jakub ; Klapilová, Kateřina (advisor) ; Weiss, Petr (referee) ; Konečná, Martina (referee)
This thesis focusses on choice of partner, courtship, and stability of relationship. The emphasized phenomenon within this field are namely evolutionary origins of attractiveness and attraction, endocrine, behavioral, verbal and paraverbal displays. The courtship in this thesis is divided into three major phases - attractivity, proceptivity and receptivity - following suggestion of Beach, Freund and Money. Each of these phases is typical by certain types of behavior and reaction, such as hormonal response, vocal displays as is described in review of literature in the theoretical part. In the second, practical part, consists of four articles that address one specific phenomenon at time. The first article is focused on choice of partners in real world and their presence in sexual fantasy repertoire. The second article addresses vocal modulation when speaking to member of opposite sex who we find attractive or unattractive. The third article introduces hormonal response on possibility of gaining and loss of a potential partner in virtual courtship scenario. And finally, the fourth discusses role of female orgasm in relation to sexual and overall satisfaction in the relationship. The studies are original, and bring innovative insight to human mate-choice and courting, providing further scientific...
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Analysis of a human body odour using comprehensive two-dimensional gas chromatography
Bušovská, Radka ; Sobotníková, Jana (advisor) ; Žáček, Petr (referee)
Body odour perception plays an important role in human mate choice, especially in women. It was previously proposed that women select partners whose body odour resembles that of woman's fathers. Yet, this phenomenon has only been confirmed using ethological studies based on subjective perception of body odour similarities. Therefore, the aim of my diploma thesis was to test this hypothesis instrumentally using comprehensive GC×GC-TOFMS and subsequent multidimensional analyses of body odour chemical profiles of male partners and fathers of adult women. Body odour sampling from left and right axilla of fathers and partners of 41 women (altogether 164 samples) was performed using cotton swabs, which were then frozen and extracted into hexane. Typical human volatile substances, such as hydrocarbons, carboxylic acids, esters, alcohols, aldehydes, ketones, sterols and terpenes were detected in all examined samples. Using a newly available "tile-based" chromatographic alignment algorithm, we obtained a set of 341 compounds systematically occurring in male axillary odour. The principal component analysis was used to calculate Euclidean distances for all pairs of the studied male subjects. These estimates of "chemical distances" revealed to be significantly smaller for father-partner pairs of individual...
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The influence of oral hormonal contraceptive use on female sexuality: the evolutionary perspective
Klapilová, Kateřina ; Weiss, Petr (advisor) ; Procházka, Ivo (referee) ; Blažek, Vladimír (referee)
The proposed thesis is comprised of eleven papers connected by the employment of the evolutionary psychological approach in research on various aspects of human sexuality. The aim of the first monothematic part is to demonstrate the evolutionary-psychological approach to one recent phenomenon in female sexuality - the use of oral contraceptives (OC). OC use has been shown to suppress psychological mechanisms that are considered to be adaptive in the fertile period of the natural menstrual cycle. In particular, OC users' ratings of male stimuli that provide the cues of genetic quality and compatibility are lower in comparison with normally cycling women. Moreover, the increase in sexual desire and in the prevalence of proceptive behaviour observed during mid-cycle in normally cycling women is diminished. However, the impact of this phenomenon on mate-choice and relationship dynamics in an ecological context has not been studied. In the first study, we have analyzed the data of Czech women obtained via representative sampling within the Czech National Survey of Sexual Behavior. Results indicated that normally cycling women had a significantly higher number of one-night stands during the last year in comparison to OC users even when living in a long-term relationship. OC usage was also shown to have...
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Assortative mating in humans.
Štěrbová, Zuzana ; Weiss, Petr (advisor) ; Lindová, Jitka (referee) ; Špinka, Marek (referee)
Human mate choice is far from random. Assortative mating can be either positive (homogamy), when people prefer and choose partners with self-similar characteristics, or negative (heterogamy, complementarity), when people prefer self-dissimilar partners. Over one hundred years of research, it has been shown that people generally couple based on the principle of homogamy. This thesis seeks to address the following two goals. First, it critically reviews the current state of knowledge in positive assortative mating (in particular, empirical support, factors affecting homogamy, mechanisms of homogamy, relationship and genetic impact of homogamy, and methodological pitfalls of research). This section includes theoretical papers deal with further mechanisms of assortative mating (homogamy, imprinting-like effect, heterogamy, complementarity). Second, the thesis provides further test of assortative mating in 'ideal partners' (preferences) and actual partners, in the context of sex, sexual orientation (heterosexual and non-heterosexual), and population (Brazil and Czech Republic). Results of these studies show that the principle of homogamy is valid irrespective of sex and population. However, they find a stronger tendency for homogamy in actual partners among heterosexuals than in homosexuals, although...
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Mate preferences and their integration to mate choice
Csajbók, Zsófia ; Havlíček, Jan (advisor) ; Lindová, Jitka (referee) ; David-Barrett, Tamas (referee)
Mate choice decisions have long-term effects on both party's well-being as well as reproductive outcomes. Consequently, evolutionary biology and psychology devoted a large body of research on investigating human mate choice. The evolutionary psychology of human partner selection can be perceived as inter-connected processes, such as mating strategy, mate preferences, and mate choice. This dissertation thesis consists of two larger segments. The first segment is an Introduction to my four original research papers in the second segment. In the Introduction, I discuss heterosexual partner selection in two parts. First, I describe how mating strategies affect mate preferences, what the key mate preference dimensions are - both positive and negative factors of partner evaluations -, how stable they are, and how they change over time within a person. Further, I review the concept of mate value and how mate preference factors are weighing in the overall perception of mate value on the mating market. In the second part, I discuss how partner preferences are integrated into mate choice, also known as the mate choice integration models. The Additive and Threshold models of mate choice, the Euclidean distance model, and Assortative mating will be discussed in detail since they are the most commonly applied...
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Effect of hormonal contraception use during relationship formation on subsequent relationship satisfaction
Fiurašková, Kateřina ; Havlíček, Jan (advisor) ; Pastor, Zlatko (referee)
Results of previous studies testing the influence of oral contraceptives on relationship satisfaction have produced mixed results. These discrepancies might be explained by the "Congruency hypothesis", which predicts that relationship satisfaction is determined by the congruency (or non-congruency) between current use of oral contraceptives and their use during relationship formation. This is because oral contraceptives appear to alter women's mate preferences, so that attraction to their partner may have changed in non-congruent women. Indeed, previous studies have shown that women in a non-congruent state were less sexually satisfied with their partner, even though they were more generally satisfied in the non- sexual aspects of the relationship. The aim of our study was to test the congruency hypothesis on two groups of couples (couples attending the Center of Assisted Reproduction, and a comparison group of pregnant women and their partners; note that in neither group were women currently using oral contraception). Based on previous studies, we expected that women who used oral contraceptives at the time of relationship formation would report lower sexual satisfaction with their partner than women who were non-users during relationship formation. The study involved a total of 660 couples from...
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Relationship between reactivity of immune system and facial attractiveness
Slámová, Žaneta ; Třebická Fialová, Jitka (advisor) ; Pokorný, Šimon (referee)
Previous studies have shown that physical attractiveness is one of important aspects in mate choice. Facial traits perceived as attractive may be linked to potential mate quality, or more precisely to their reproductive potential, health and ability to invest in his mate and offspring. Mating with individuals with more reactive immune system could lead to higher reproductive success and thus it is possible that visual cues facilitating detection of such traits may have evolved. The main aim of the present thesis was to test a possible association between the reactivity of the immune system response to foreign antigens (stimulated by vaccination) and facial attractiveness perceived by opposite sex individuals. Further, we investigated visual changes occurring during immune system activation. We did not find any association between measures of reactivity of immune system and perceived facial attractiveness. However, participants with activated immune system were rated as significantly less attractive and were significantly paler. Overall, our results suggest that people are sensitive to visual cues to current health status but not to overall quality of the individual. Key Words Facial attractiveness, mate choice, sexual selection; heterozygosity; symmetry; immune system, antigen; disease-avoidance,...
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Consistency and paternal influence on human mate choice in heterosexual women
Taskovská, Kristýna ; Štěrbová, Zuzana (advisor) ; Bártová, Klára (referee)
People choose partners based on different characteristics, however it is not clear whether they systematically choose partners with specific characteristics. It is also not clear what modulates partner preferences. One of the factors are parents, however the question is, whether parents influence all types of relationships (e.g. one-night stand, marriage etc.). The main objective was to analyze the consistency of mate choice in physical characteristics in heterosexual women. Another objective was to test paternal influence on the mate choice, and whether this influence differs among partners with whom women have children and partners with whom they don't. Last objective was to test whether the similarity between father and current partner influences the relationship and sexual satisfaction of the respondent. In total 693 heterosexual women, aged 18-45, participated in the research (average age = 30,7; SE = 5,9) and provided physical characteristics (weight, height, attractiveness, masculinity, eye color, hair color, facial masculinity, facial hair, musculature, BMI, relative height, body hair and leg length) of their father, current partner (with whom they had/were expecting children) and long term ex-partners (with whom they had no children), they completed the standardized questionnaire s-EMBU...
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