Sexual selection articles within Nature

Featured

  • Article |

    A detailed analysis of male song structure in zebra finches shows how females use particular features of songs as indicators of male quality in species that learn only one song.

    • Danyal Alam
    • , Fayha Zia
    •  & Todd F. Roberts

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Evolutionary analyses of single-nucleus transcriptome data for testes from 11 species are reported, illuminating the molecular evolution of spermatogenesis and associated forces, and providing a resource for investigating the testis across mammals.

    • Florent Murat
    • , Noe Mbengue
    •  & Henrik Kaessmann

  • Letter |

    Tadpoles of strawberry poison frogs (Oophaga pumilio) are shown to imprint on adult coloration, affecting both male aggression biases and female preferences and setting the stage for speciation by sexual selection.

    • Yusan Yang
    • , Maria R. Servedio
    •  & Corinne L. Richards-Zawacki

  • Letter |

    Ostracod species (small, bivalved crustaceans) with high sexual dimorphism, and therefore high male investment, had markedly higher extinction rates than low-investment species, indicating that sexual selection can be a substantial risk factor for extinction.

    • Maria João Fernandes Martins
    • , T. Markham Puckett
    •  & Gene Hunt

  • Letter |

    The ‘big-sperm paradox’, the observed production of few, gigantic sperm by some fruit flies (seemingly at odds with fundamental theory addressing how sexual selection works) is shown to be a result of co-evolution driven by genetic and functional relationships between sperm length, design of the female reproductive tract and features of the mating system.

    • Stefan Lüpold
    • , Mollie K. Manier
    •  & Scott Pitnick

  • Letter |

    In wild Kalahari meerkats (Suricata suricatta), subordinates of both sexes respond to experimentally induced increases in the growth of same-sex rivals by raising their own growth rate and food intake.

    • Elise Huchard
    • , Sinead English
    •  & Tim Clutton-Brock

  • Letter |

    By quantifying the colouration of all approximately 6,000 species of passerine birds, certain life-history traits such as large body size and tropical distribution are found to increase ornamentation in both male and female birds, whereas cooperative breeding increases it in females only, and sexual selection diminishes it in females more than it increases it in males.

    • James Dale
    • , Cody J. Dey
    •  & Mihai Valcu

  • Letter |

    Populations of the flour beetle Tribolium castaneum with histories of strong versus weak sexual selection purge mutation load and resist extinction differently.

    • Alyson J. Lumley
    • , Łukasz Michalczyk
    •  & Matthew J. G. Gage

  • Letter |

    Manipulation of the frequency of naturally occurring colour patterns within replicate pools of fish at three sites shows that males with rare colour patterns have higher reproductive fitness, demonstrating negative frequency-dependent selection mediated by sexual selection.

    • Kimberly A. Hughes
    • , Anne E. Houde
    •  & F. Helen Rodd

  • Letter |

    Wild Soay sheep rams with large horns have more offspring, yet there is considerable genetic variation at RXFP2, a locus strongly implicated in horn size (with different alleles conferring either large or small horns); this study finds that although the larger horn allele leads to more offspring, the smaller horn allele leads to increased survival, meaning heterozygous rams (which develop medium-sized horns) have high reproductive success and survival, providing a rare example of heterozygote advantage.

    • Susan E. Johnston
    • , Jacob Gratten
    •  & Jon Slate

  • Letter |

    A theoretical model shows how sexual selection, on its own, can maintain biodiversity, provided that two realistic assumptions are met: that carrying capacity varies spatially, and that females searching for mates incur costs in doing so.

    • Leithen K. M’Gonigle
    • , Rupert Mazzucco
    •  & Ulf Dieckmann

  • Letter |

    Direct experimental tests of the conditions under which sex evolves have been rare. These authors evolve populations of a facultatively sexual rotifer in homogeneous and heterogeneous environments and show that the latter promotes sex.

    • Lutz Becks
    •  & Aneil F. Agrawal

  • Letter |

    Male pregnancy is restricted to seahorses, pipefishes and their relatives, in which young are nurtured in the male's brood pouch. It is now clear that the brood pouch has a further function. Studies of Gulf pipefish show that males can selectively abort embryos from females perceived as less attractive, saving resources for more hopeful prospects later. This is the only known example of post-copulatory sexual conflict in a sex-reversed species.

    • Kimberly A. Paczolt
    •  & Adam G. Jones

Browse broader subjects

Browse Sexual selection across other nature.com journals