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Sexual selection is an evolutionary process that favours the traits of individuals who compete more successfully for mating opportunities. These traits are not necessarily those favoured by natural selection on survival and can include exaggerated indicators of sexual fitness and increased ability for conflict within or between sexes.
Sexual dimorphism in the fundamental frequency of primate vocalizations is variable. Here, the authors examine 1914 vocalizations from 37 anthropoid species to find that fundamental frequency dimorphism increased with larger group size and polygyny, due to sexual selection.
Birdsong is simultaneously repetitive and highly diverse. Sierro et al. resolve this apparent paradox through experiments in blue tits showing that consistent repetition is a fitness indicator, while song diversity reduces habituation during singing displays.
This Review discusses how sexual selection and sexual conflict shape genomes and transcriptomes and proposes an integrative approach combining behavioural ecology with developmental and genomic biology to answer open questions.
Why do males typically compete more intensely for mating opportunities than do females and how does this relate to sex differences in gamete size? A new study provides a formal evolutionary link between gamete size dimorphism and ‘Bateman gradients’, which describe how much individuals of each sex benefit from additional matings.
Behavioural experiments and genetic manipulations reveal the mechanisms by which Drosophila females plastically alter their choosiness in response to mating, resolving trade-offs of mate choice.
Sperm length unexpectedly varies more than 3,000-fold across species, posing new questions for anisogamy theory and understanding the different forces shaping evolution of the male gamete.
The Y chromosome of the freshwater fish Poecilia parae may have successively evolved five haplotypes that are maintained in the population for alternative male reproductive strategies.
