Animals of many species accept or solicit recurring copulations with the same partner; i.e., show repeated mating. An evolutionary explanation for this excess requires that the advantages of repeated mating outweigh the costs, and that behavioral components of repeated mating are genetically influenced. There can be benefits of repeated mating for males when there is competition for fertilizations or where the opportunities for inseminating additional mates are rare or unpredictable. The benefits to females are less obvious and, depending on underlying genetic architecture, repeated mating may have evolved as a correlated response to selection on males. We investigated the evolution of repeated mating with the same partner in the burying beetle Nicrophorus vespilloides by estimating the direct and indirect fitness benefits for females and the genetics of behavior underlying repeated mating. The number of times a female mated had minimal direct and no indirect fitness benefits for females. The behavioral components of repeated mating (mating frequency and mating speed) were moderately negatively genetically correlated in males and uncorrelated in females. However, mating frequency and mating speed were strongly positively genetically correlated between males and females. Our data suggest that repeated mating by female N. vespilloides may have evolved as a correlated response to selection on male behavior rather than in response to benefits of repeated mating for females.

Theory suggests that, under some circumstances, sexual conflict over mating can lead to divergent sexually antagonistic coevolution among populations for traits associated with mating, and that this can promote reproductive isolation and hence speciation. However, sexual conflict over mating may also select for traits (e.g. male willingness to mate) that enhance gene flow between populations, limiting population divergence. In the present study, we compare pre‐ and post‐mating isolation within and between two species characterized by male–female conflict over mating rate. We quantify sexual isolation among five populations of the seed bug Lygaeus equestris collected from Italy and Sweden, and two replicates of a population of the sister‐species Lygaeus simulans, also collected from Italy. We find no evidence of reproductive isolation amongst populations of L. equestris, suggesting that sexual conflict over mating has not led to population divergence in relevant mating traits in L. equestris. However, there was strong asymmetric pre‐mating isolation between L. equestris and L. simulans: male L. simulans were able to mate successfully with female L. equestris, whereas male L. equestris were largely unable to mate with female L. simulans. We found little evidence for strong post‐mating isolation between the two species, however, with hybrid F2 offspring being produced. Our results suggest that sexual conflict over mating has not led to population divergence, and indeed perhaps supports the contrary theoretical prediction that male willingness to mate may retard speciation by promoting gene flow.