SynthesisNature communications2019
Meta-analytic evidence that sexual selection improves population fitness.
Synthesis in Nature communications, 2019. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 48 papers, 4 of them syntheses that pooled it.
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
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
48 citing papers in PubMed, 4 syntheses or guidelines pooled it.
- Effects of temperature on mating behaviour and mating success: A meta-analysis.The Journal of animal ecology · 2022Pooled it
- Sexual dimorphism in phenotypic plasticity and persistence under environmental change: An extension of theory and meta-analysis of current data.Ecology letters · 2022Pooled it
- Sex-specific inbreeding depression: A meta-analysis.Ecology letters · 2022Pooled it
- Stronger net selection on males across animals.eLife · 2021Pooled it
- Sexual selection purges mutation load, but not overall genetic diversity, decreasing vulnerability to extinction.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2026Article
- Gut Microbiota Is Linked to Female Olfactory Preference in Giant Pandas.Animals : an open access journal from MDPI · 2026Article
- Experimental Evolution Under Biased Sex Ratios: Phenotypic and Genomic Responses in the Bulb Mite, Rhizoglyphus robini.Genome biology and evolution · 2026Article
- The association of frailty with age and lifespan in mice differs by strain and sex.The journals of gerontology. Series A, Biological sciences and medical sciences · 2026Article
- Life History Consequences of the Prevalence of Aggressive Males Carrying Costly Weapons.Ecology and evolution · 2026Article
- Article
- Do alternative reproductive tactics facilitate evolutionary rescue? A comment on Knell & Parrett 2024.Evolution letters · 2026Article
- Mating system of free-ranging domestic dogs and its consequences for dog evolution.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2025Article
- Cryptic Reproductive Costs of Heatwaves for Animal Populations.Global change biology · 2025Review
- Fighting Through the Heat: How Male Aggression Influences Demography Under Recurrent Heatwaves.Ecology and evolution · 2025Article
- Sexual selection, genomic evolution and population fitness inProceedings. Biological sciences · 2025Article
- Experimental data suggest between population reversal in the condition dependence of two sexually selected traits.Scientific reports · 2025Article
- Sexual selection matters in genetic rescue, but productivity benefits fade over time: a multi-generation experiment to inform conservation.Proceedings. Biological sciences · 2025Article
- The role of condition on sexual selection in the seed bugEcology and evolution · 2024Article
- Alternative reproductive tactics and evolutionary rescue.Evolution letters · 2024Article
- Pesticide exposure triggers sex-specific inter- and transgenerational effects conditioned by past sexual selection.Proceedings. Biological sciences · 2024Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
3 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Sexual selection has manifold ecological and evolutionary consequences, making its net effect on population fitness difficult to predict. A powerful empirical test is to experimentally manipulate sexual selection and then determine how population fitness evolves. Here, we synthesise 459 effect sizes from 65 experimental evolution studies using meta-analysis. We find that sexual selection on males tends to elevate the mean and reduce the variance for many fitness traits, especially in females and in populations evolving under stressful conditions. Sexual selection had weaker effects on direct measures of population fitness such as extinction rate and proportion of viable offspring, relative to traits that are less closely linked to population fitness. Overall, we conclude that the beneficial population-level consequences of sexual selection typically outweigh the harmful ones and that the effects of sexual selection can differ between sexes and environments. We discuss the implications of these results for conservation and evolutionary biology.
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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.