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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.
A phylogenetic comparative analysis of male and female body size across tetrapods globally shows that directional change in size is usually greater in males but reveals different underlying mechanisms among lineages.
A comparative analysis of morphological data across 149 species of Drosophilidae shows that sperm length in males has co-evolved with the length of the sperm-storage organ in females. Combining a genome-wide association study of these traits in Drosophilamelanogaster with molecular evolutionary analyses of the genomes of 15 Drosophila species, the authors find that the genetic architecture underlying sperm length is associated with indirect genetic benefits in females, providing support for the ‘good genes’ hypothesis.
How do neural circuits evolve to encode new social behaviors? Here we show that in Drosophila santomea, females signal their sexual receptivity by spreading wings in response to male songs, and this recently originated social behavior evolved through the actualization of a pre-existing latent circuit.
Peripheral and central circuit adaptations can be flexibly coordinated in Drosophila, and such a modular circuit organization may facilitate the evolution of mate recognition systems by allowing novel sensory modalities to become linked to male arousal.
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.
