Thermal phenotypic plasticity of pre- and post-copulatory male harm buffers sexual conflict in wild .

Strong sexual selection frequently leads to sexual conflict and ensuing male harm, whereby males increase their reproductive success at the expense of harming females. Male harm is a widespread evolutionary phenomenon with a strong bearing on population viability. Thus, understanding how it unfolds in the wild is a current priority.

No evidence that relatedness or familiarity modulates male harm in flies from a wild population.

Sexual selection frequently promotes the evolution of aggressive behaviors that help males compete against their rivals, but which may harm females and hamper their fitness. Kin selection theory predicts that optimal male-male competition levels can be reduced when competitors are more genetically related to each other than to the population average, contributing to resolve this sexual conflict. Work in has spearheaded empirical tests of this idea, but studies so far have been conducted in laboratory-adapted populations in homogeneous rearing environments that may hamper kin recognition, and used highly skewed sex ratios that may fail to reflect average natural conditions.