ArticlePLoS biology2023
Sexual selection in females and the evolution of polyandry.
Article in PLoS biology, 2023. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 29 papers.
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Who cites it
29 citing papers in PubMed, 75 citations in OpenAlex.
- Biological Sex Is Binary and Rooted in Anisogamy.Ecology letters · 2026Review
- Inclusive Biology Curriculum Interventions can Reduce High School Students' Bioessentialist Beliefs.CBE life sciences education · 2026Article
- Widespread polyandry in an invasive beetle species (Aethina tumida).Scientific reports · 2026Article
- Sexual Selection Associated With an Aggressive Male Phenotype Reduces Population Size and Hinders Population Recovery After Heat Stress.Ecology letters · 2026Article
- First evidence of polyandry for amazonian stingray (Potamotrygon wallacei Carvalho, Rosa & Araújo 2016) based on genome-wide SNP data.Molecular biology reports · 2026Article
- Male bonobo mating strategies target female fertile windows despite noisy ovulatory signals during sexual swelling.PLoS biology · 2025Article
- Article
- Diagnosing confounded Bateman gradients.Evolution; international journal of organic evolution · 2025Article
- A Comprehensive Account of the Breeding Systems of the Fire AntEcology and evolution · 2025Article
- Organizational effects of testosterone on the number of mating partners and reproductive success in females of a social rodent.Scientific reports · 2025Article
- Monogamy removes constraints on reproductive tissue investment imposed by intense sexual selection.Scientific reports · 2025Article
- β2-tubulin regulates the development and migration of eupyrene sperm in Spodoptera frugiperda.Cellular and molecular life sciences : CMLS · 2025Article
- Prenatal sex determination illuminates the unusual adult sex ratio of a group-living lemur.Biology letters · 2025Article
- Sexual conflict underlying external female genital mutilation in spiders: assessing whether females benefit from multiple matings.Proceedings. Biological sciences · 2025Article
- Anisogamy and the Darwin-Bateman paradigm.Evolution letters · 2024Article
- Novel insights into paternity skew in a polyandrous social wasp.Insect science · 2024Article
- The logic of conventional and reversed Bateman gradients.Proceedings. Biological sciences · 2024Article
- Climate and ecology predict latitudinal trends in sexual selection inferred from avian mating systems.PLoS biology · 2024Article
- Young adults' desired life tradeoffs: love first, sex last.Scientific reports · 2024Article
- Brood success of sex-role-reversed pheasant-tailed jacanas: the effects of social polyandry, seasonality, and male mating order.Zoological letters · 2024Article
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Authors and funding
4 authors at 2 institutions in 3 countries.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Over the last decades, the field of sexual selection underwent a paradigm shift from sexual-stereotype thinking of "eager" males and "coy" females towards a more nuanced perspective acknowledging that not only males but also females can benefit from multiple mating and compete for mating partners. Yet, sexual selection in females is still considered a peculiarity, and the evolution of polyandry is often viewed to result from a higher mating interest of males. Here, we present meta-analytic evidence from 77 species across a broad range of animal taxa to demonstrate that female reproductive success is overall positively correlated with mating success, suggesting that females typically benefit from multiple mating. Importantly, we found that these fitness gains likely promote the evolution of polyandry. Our findings offer support for the idea that sexual selection is widespread in females and to play a key role for the evolution of animal mating systems. Thereby, our results extend our understanding of the evolutionary consequences of sexual reproduction and contribute to a more balanced view of how sexual selection operates in males and females.
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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.