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Evolution

The battle between the sexes

Nature volume 423, pages 929–930 (2003)Cite this article

Male–female conflict over mating rate can drive rapid evolution and lead to female refusal to mate with males from other populations, so implicating sexual conflict in the generation of biodiversity.

Sexual conflict is a pervasive feature of the living world. Although the sexes need one another, they rarely have exactly the same priorities. Males can often increase their reproductive success — the number of offspring they sire — simply by mating with as many females as possible. Females, on the other hand, are limited by their ability to produce offspring, and unnecessary matings may be costly. This difference sets the stage for an evolutionary arms race in which males are continually evolving new adaptations to get females to mate with them rather than with other males, and females are striving to resist this manipulation.

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  1. Ecology and Evolution Group, School of Biology, University of Leeds, Leeds, LS2 9JT, UK

    Tom Tregenza

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  1. Tom Tregenza
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Correspondence to Tom Tregenza.

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Tregenza, T. The battle between the sexes. Nature 423, 929–930 (2003). https://doi.org/10.1038/423929a

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