%0 Journal Article
%T Females ¡°Assist¡± Sneaker Males to Dupe Dominant Males in a Rare Endemic Damselfly: Sexual Conflict at Its Finest
%J The Bulletin of the Ecological Society of America - Wiley Online Library
%D 2019
%R https://doi.org/10.1002/bes2.1598
%X One common view in sexual selection is that females select the fittest male. By investigating the reproductive behavior of an endemic damselfly, Calopteryx exul, in Northeast Algeria, I showed that this is not always the case. To avoid the costly repeated copulations, the female hosting the sneaker's sperm (low©\quality male) tends to avoid the dominant male by landing near another female, which confuses the dominant male who ends up copulating with a different female. Hence, the female indirectly assists the sneaker male. This finding advances our view about the mechanisms underlying the maintenance of phenotypic and genetic variability. Photo credit: Rassim Khelifa. Photo credit: Rassim Khelifa. Photo credit: Rassim Khelifa. Photo credit: Rassim Khelifa. These photographs illustrate the article ¡°Females ¡®assist¡¯ sneaker males to dupe dominant males in a rare endemic damselfly: sexual conflict at its finest¡± by Rassim Khelifa published in Ecology. https://doi.org/10.1002/ecy.281
%U https://esajournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/bes2.1598