Mating Contests Among Females May Shape Their Evolution | Quanta Magazine
The flies are flipping the classic drama reenacted across the animal kingdom, in which eager males with dazzling plumage, snarls of antlers or other extraordinary traits compete for a chance to woo a reluctant female. Such competitions between males for the favor of choosy females are enshrined in evolutionary theory as sexual selection, with the females choices molding the evolution of the males instruments of seduction over generations.
Yet it s becoming clear that this traditional picture of sexual selection is woefully incomplete. Dramatic and obvious reversals of the selection scenario, like that of the dance flies, aren t often observed in nature, but recent research suggests that throughout the tree of animal life, females jockey for the attention of males far more than was believed. A new study hosted on the preprint server biorxiv.org has found that in animals as diverse as sea urchins and salamanders, females are subject to sexual selection not as harshly as males are, but enough to make biologists rethink the balance of evolutionary forces shaping species in their accounts of the history of life.
My non-professional opinion is that this is obviously true.