Strong sexual selection frequently favors males that increase their reproductive success by harming females, with potentially negative consequences for natural populations. Understanding what factors modulate conflict between the sexes is hence critical to understand both the evolution of male and female phenotypes and the viability of populations in the wild. Here, we model the evolution of male harm while incorporating male-induced maternal effects on offspring quality. We show that because male harm can induce condition-transfer maternal effects that reduce the quality of a harming male’s own offspring, maternal effects can partially align male and female evolutionary interests and significantly curb the evolution of male harm. These effects are independent of relatedness, the scale of competition, mating system, and whether male harm comes before (i.e., harassment) and/or during/after (i.e., traumatic inseminations or toxic ejaculates) mating and are particularly salient when maternal effects influence offspring ability to inflict (sons) or resist (daughters) harm. Our results underscore the potential importance of considering maternal effects to unravel the evolution of sexual conflict.

中文翻译：

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条件转移母体效应调节内部性冲突

强烈的性选择往往有利于雄性，通过伤害雌性来提高繁殖成功率，这对自然种群可能产生负面影响。因此，了解哪些因素调节性别之间的冲突对于了解雄性和雌性表型的进化以及野生种群的生存能力至关重要。在这里，我们模拟了男性伤害的演变，同时纳入了男性引起的母性对后代质量的影响。我们发现，由于男性伤害会引起条件转移母体效应，从而降低伤害男性自己后代的质量，因此母体效应可以部分调整男性和女性的进化利益，并显着抑制男性伤害的进化。这些影响与亲缘关系、竞争规模、交配系统以及男性伤害是否发生在交配之前（即骚扰）和/或交配期间/之后（即创伤性授精或有毒射精）无关，并且当母体影响影响时尤其显着后代施加（儿子）或抵抗（女儿）伤害的能力。我们的结果强调了考虑母亲影响对于揭示性冲突演变的潜在重要性。