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Evolutionary biology

Brotherly love benefits females

Mating competition between males often has harmful consequences for females. But it seems that fruit flies alter their behaviour among kin, with brothers being less aggressive and females reproducing for longer as a result. See Letter p.672

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Figure 1: Kindness to kin reduces harm to females.

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Correspondence to Scott Pitnick or David W. Pfennig.

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Pitnick, S., Pfennig, D. Brotherly love benefits females. Nature 505, 626–627 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1038/nature12853

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