La selecció sexual: rere el llegat de Darwin

Resumen

Much of the knowledge we treasure about evolution, and biology in general, rests on Darwin’s ideas about sexual selection, put forward 150 years ago. In his work The Descent of Man, and Selection in Relation to Sex, Darwin explains two fundamental mechanisms competition for reproduction: to understand intra-sexual competition and mate choice. Today we know that, along with these two mechanisms, the intricate path to reproduction also depends on sperm competition and cryptic mate choice by females. In this text we review what we have learned about these four mechanisms and discuss general aspects of sex roles, the evolutionary battle between the sexes and the general relevance of sexual selection for understanding the natural world. After 150 years of studying sexual selection, we now know that with this idea Darwin not only completed the general outline of his Theory of Natural Selection, but laid the foundations of what has become one of the most complex and stimulating fields in the study of evolution. A vital process for understanding not only the evolution of males and females, but also speciation, the ability of populations to adapt to changing environments, or the evolution of sexual reproduction itself.Keywords: evolution, sexual selection, animal behaviour, sexes.