Sexual Conflict

by Göran Arnqvist, Locke Rowe

The past decade has seen a profound change in the scientific understanding of reproduction. The traditional view of reproduction as a joint venture undertaken by two individuals, aimed at replicating their common genome, is being challenged by a growing body of evidence showing that the evolutionary interests of interacting males and females diverge. This book demonstrates that, despite a shared genome, conflicts between interacting males and females are ubiquitous, and that selection in the two sexes is continuously pulling this genome in opposite directions. These conflicts drive the evolution of a great variety of those traits that distinguish the sexes and also contribute to the diversification of lineages. Göran Arnqvist and Locke Rowe present an array of evidence for sexual conflict throughout nature, and they set these conflicts into the well-established theoretical framework of sexual selection.


The recognition of conflict between the sexes is transforming our theories for the evolution of mating systems and the sexes themselves. Written by two top researchers in the field, Sexual Conflict is the first book to describe this transformation. It is a must read for all scholars and students interested in the evolutionary biology of reproduction.

Genres: Science, Evolution

352 pages, Paperback

First published July 5, 2005

Reviews

[Luke · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent overview of a complex and interesting topic.

[Liz · Rating 4 out of 5]

Arnqvist and Rowe provide a nice introduction to the topic of sexually antagonistic coevolution and its potential role in everything from mate choice, to postcopulatory selection, to the evolution of sex chromosomes. They are very upfront about the limitations of using current studies to infer antagonism versus other evolutionary processes in mediating interactions between genders, but provide thought-provoking discussion about the inclusion of antagonism in sexual selection theory. I would recommend also reading Female Control: Sexual Selection by Cryptic Female Choice for empirical support of a "benefits" based explanation of sexual selection. The two books balance each other out nicely and the authors acknowledge that different evolutionary forces may act at different time points to both introduce novel traits or behaviors as well as maintain them over time.