Nina Wedell

The heritability of attractiveness

Evolutionary Conflict: Sperm Wars, Phantom Inseminations

A new experimental study has provided the first definitive evidence for conditional punishment of 'cheats' in a sperm-trading simultaneous hermaphrodite: the sea slug Chelidonura hirundinina. This also provides a rare unequivocal example of conditional reciprocity averting a 'tragedy of the commons' in biology.

Sperm dumping as a defense against meiotic drive

Sperm from Drosophila simulans that carry a sex-ratio distorter is preferentially lost from females' sperm-storage organs. This suggests that sperm dumping is a major factor affecting sperm competition in this species, and may have evolved in response to sex-ratio distorters.

Conflict on the sex chromosomes: cause, effect, and complexity.

Intralocus sexual conflict and intragenomic conflict both affect sex chromosome evolution and can in extreme cases even cause the complete turnover of sex chromosomes. Additionally, established sex chromosomes often become the focus of heightened conflict. This creates a tangled relationship between sex chromosomes and conflict with respect to cause and effect. To further complicate matters, se...

The polyandry revolution.

The realisation that in the majority of sexually-reproducing organisms from angiosperm to primates females often mate with multiple males (polyandry) is not only revolutionising our understanding of sexual selection, sexual conflict and sex roles, but is also having profound repercussions for a number of other key evolutionary and ecological processes such as the evolution of sociality, sex chr...