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A peacock in Ranthambore, India.

Travelographer 1 | 500px Prime | Getty Images

In the Common Descent podcast they discussed various aspects of sexual selection. At the beginning of the discussion they compared sexual selection and natural selection. One trait that they used to describe sexual selection is that it only cares if you survive long enough to have babies. I was a bit confused about this statement because I was under the impression that is what all types of selection cared about most. They didn't go into a lot of detail on that statement but I would be interested to hear a further explanation.

Later on in the podcast they discussed sexual conflict. This was described as opposing selective pressures for different sexes of the same species. The different sexes essentially have different goals when it comes to reproduction. I thought this was very interesting because oftentimes when I think about species propagation I do so with the mindset that every individual just wants to mate. I did not consider that different sexes have different expectations for mating. After hearing about the energy costs for females to mate and bear offspring it makes sense that they do not want to breed as frequently as possible as males often do.