ArticleRoyal Society open science2017
Evolution of external female genital mutilation: why do males harm their mates?
Article in Royal Society open science, 2017. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 4 papers.
What it found
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
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Who cites it
4 citing papers in PubMed, 10 citations in OpenAlex.
- Sexual conflict underlying external female genital mutilation in spiders: assessing whether females benefit from multiple matings.Proceedings. Biological sciences · 2025Article
- The brain transcriptome of the wolf spider, Schizocosa ocreata.BMC research notes · 2021Article
- Sperm competition when transfer is dangerous.Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences · 2020Review
- The timing of female genital mutilation and the role of contralateral palpal insertions in the spiderRoyal Society open science · 2017Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
3 authors at 2 institutions in 2 countries.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Sperm competition may select for male reproductive traits that influence female mating or oviposition rate. These traits may induce fitness costs to the female; however, they may be costly for the males as well as any decrease in female fitness also affects male fitness. Male adaptations to sperm competition manipulate females by altering not only female behaviour or physiology, but also female morphology. In orb-weaving spiders, mating may entail mutilation of external structures of the female genitalia, which prevents genital coupling with subsequent males. Here, we present a game theoretical model showing that external female genital mutilation is favoured even under relatively high costs of mutilation, and that it is favoured by a high number of mate encounters per female and last-male sperm precedence.
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Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.