Cost of courtship-effects of male-male competition on harm experienced by Hyalella amphipods

Recent research has shown that sexual conflict is very common in nature. It arises because of the different evolutionary interests of the sexes. Sexual conflict is by definition costly to organisms and in most cases, is more detrimental to one sex than the other. This occurs because strategies that maximize the fitness of one sex can reduce the fitness of the other sex (1). In many species, males have a higher optimal mating rate than females. Strategies males use to maximize mating success can decrease female fitness. Hence, sexual conflict often takes the form of a behavioral conflict which can have population-level consequences by reducing the mean female fitness in a population, which, in theory, can cause population extinction