Note to users. If you're seeing this message, it means that your browser cannot find this page's style/presentation instructions -- or possibly that you are using a browser that does not support current Web standards. Find out more about why this message is appearing, and what you can do to make your experience of our site the best it can be.

Science 17 May 1996:
Vol. 272. no. 5264, pp. 953 - 954
DOI: 10.1126/science.272.5264.953
Prev | Table of Contents | Next

Research News

Virginia Morell

According to an ingenious new experiment, behind the act of making love lies evolutionary war--at least in fruit flies. By blocking female flies' evolution while allowing males to evolve, researchers revealed a coevolutionary struggle waged through compounds in seminal fluid and in the female's reproductive tract. In the experiment, highly evolved "supermale" flies fathered more offspring, but their evolutionarily "stuck" female partners died young, apparently because of toxins in the males' seminal fluid. The work provides experimental evidence for sociobiological theory and also has implications for how new species are formed.




To Advertise     Find Products

Science. ISSN 0036-8075 (print), 1095-9203 (online)