The genetic basis of variation in sexual aggression: Evolution versus social plasticity

Abstract

There are many diverse strategies that males and females use to increase their fitness, some of which may not align with the ideal fitness outcomes for their sexual partners. This fitness misalignment generates sexual conflict, which has been a subject of thorough research by evolutionary biologists (Arnqvist & Rowe, 2005;Chapman, 2006;Fricke et al., 2010). Such sexual conflict can be relatively inconspicuous, for example on a molecular scale after copulation has occurred, where male seminal proteins can have a marked influence on female behaviour in favour of the male's fitness and at a cost to the female's (Chapman et al., 1995;Wigby & Chapman, 2005). On the other hand, sexual conflict can be obvious, as in the case of male sexual strategies that involve sexual aggression, such as forced copulation (FC)