Scrabble?! POSTMATING

Definitions of POSTMATING in various dictionaries:

Sexual conflict or sexual antagonism occurs when the two sexes have conflicting optimal fitness strategies concerning reproduction, particularly over the mode and frequency of mating, potentially leading to an evolutionary arms race between males and females. In one example, males may benefit from multiple matings, while multiple matings may harm or endanger females, due to the anatomical differences of that species. The development of an evolutionary arms race can also be seen in the chase-away sexual selection model, which places inter-sexual conflicts in the context of secondary sexual characteristic evolution, sensory exploitation, and female resistance. According to chase-away selection, continuous sexual conflict creates an environment in which mating frequency and male secondary sexual trait development are somewhat in step with the female's degree of resistance. It has primarily been studied in animals, though it can in principle apply to any sexually reproducing organism, such as plants and fungi. There is some evidence for sexual conflict in plants.Sexual conflict takes two major forms: Interlocus sexual conflict is the interaction of a set of antagonistic alleles at one or more loci in males and females. An example is conflict over mating rates. Males frequently have a higher optimal mating rate than females because in most animal species, they invest fewer resources in offspring than their female counterparts. Therefore, males have numerous adaptations to induce females to mate with them. Another well-documented example of inter-locus sexual conflict is the seminal fluid of Drosophila melanogaster, which up-regulates females' egg-laying rate and reduces her desire to re-mate with another male (serving the male's interests), but also shortens the female's lifespan reducing her fitness. Intralocus sexual conflict – This kind of conflict represents a tug of war between natural selection on both sexes and sexual selection on one sex. For example, the bill color in Zebra finches etc. Ornamentation could be costly to produce, it is important in mate choice but also makes an individual vulnerable to predators, the alleles for such phenotypic traits are under antagonistic selection and this conflict is resolved via elaborate sexual dimorphism thus maintaining sexually antagonistic alleles in the population. Evidence indicates that intralocus conflict may be an important constraint in the evolution of many traits.Sexual conflict may lead to antagonistic co-evolution, in which one sex (usually male) evolves a favorable trait that is offset by a countering trait in the other sex. Similarly, interlocus sexual conflict can be the result of what is called a perpetual cycle. The perpetual cycle begins with the traits that favor male reproductive competition, which eventually manifests into male persistence. These favorable traits will cause a reduction in the fitness of females due to their persistence. Following this event, females ma...