Conflicts of interest between mates can promote the evolution of male traits that reduce
female fitness and that drive coevolution between the sexes. The rate of adaptation depends
on the intensity of selection and its efficiency, which depends on drift and genetic variability.
This leads to the largely untested prediction that coevolutionary adaptations such as those
driven by sexual conflict should evolve faster in large populations. We tested this using the
bruchid beetle Callosobruchus maculatus, a species where harm inflicted by males is well …

… experimental evolution studies remove sexual conflict, we reintroduced it in populations 20
… sexual conflicts from the effect of increased genetic diversity, in a context of reintroduced 13
… We used a general linear model to test the effect of population size, genetic variability 11 …