The emergence of sexual reproduction led to a number of evolutionary consequences.Probably the most interesting of them is the emergence of sexuality, i.e. differentiation of individuals of a single species into males and females.However, this is a rather derivative condition.It was preceded by the establishment of functional and later also morphological anisogamy and gonochorism, which first created the preconditions for the formation of sexual dimorphism.Similarly as the emergence of sexual reproduction substantially affected the entire future biological evolution of sexually reproducing organisms, the formation of sexuality also affected the further progress of evolution in these species.

            This chapter will be concerned with the individual stages in the development of sexuality and also some of the consequences of its emergence.The greatest attention will be devoted to intersexual competition, i.e. the evolutionary battle between males and females.The most important consequence of intrasexual competition, i.e. sexual selection, will be discussed in a separate chapter (XV).

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The classical Darwinian theory of evolution can explain the evolution of adaptive traits only in asexual organisms. The frozen plasticity theory is much more general: It can also explain the origin and evolution of adaptive traits in both asexual and sexual organisms Read more
Draft translation from: Evoluční biologie, 2. vydání (Evolutionary biology, 2nd edition), J. Flegr, Academia Prague 2009. The translation was not done by biologist, therefore any suggestion concerning proper scientific terminology and language usage are highly welcomed. You can send your comments to flegratcesnet [dot] cz. Thank you.