You are currently viewing the summary.
View Full TextLog in to view the full text
AAAS login provides access to Science for AAAS members, and access to other journals in the Science family to users who have purchased individual subscriptions.
More options
Download and print this article for your personal scholarly, research, and educational use.
Buy a single issue of Science for just $15 USD.
Summary
Selection arising from interactions between the sexes is responsible for some of the most striking diversity on the planet. These interactions generate coevolutionary dynamics between males and females that have shaped traits such as the striking courtship displays of male birds and the less winsome mating appendages of some male insects (1). But research on sexual selection has relevance beyond understanding the weird sex lives of animals. For example, human disturbance of sexual selection can lead to the loss of native species (2) and sexually selected male harassment of females can increase a species' risk of extinction (3). On page 985 of this issue, Mitchell et al. (4) show that sexual selection can also be relevant to human health.