Recent studies of the pot-bellied seahorse (Hippocampus abdominalis) have shown that sex-role reversal occurs in high-density female-biased populations, indicating that male mating preferences may lead to sexual selection on females in this species.
Increased within-colony genetic diversity of a host species arising as a result of multiple queens within colonies or multiple mating by queens may lead to a superior defense against pathogens or enhanced division-of-labor (e.g., [ 24- 27]).
Moreover, they are more or less sensitive to the level of pedigree knowledge and to some parameters related to breeding conditions, such as the existence of population subdivisions or departure of the random mating hypothesis, which may lead to biased N e estimates.
However, successive mating with different males may lead to sperm competition, another pre-zygotic mechanism potentially involved in reproductive isolation and the dynamics of secondary contact ([ 50 and references therein, 51]).
When partial postzygotic isolation acts in the presence of divergent specific mate recognition systems, selection for increased mating specificity, the phenomenon of reinforcement, may lead to complete speciation [34], [41] [43].
The asymmetric mate preferences of both species may lead to quasi-unidirectional gene flow caused by unidirectional backcrossing.
Secondly, copulation calls may lead to multiple mating partners, and this could generate additional benefits for the female due to sperm competition [10].
Many mechanisms may lead to assortative mating patterns, for example spatial or temporal distribution.
A possible resolution to this problem is that sexual selection may lead to random mating in regard to larval phenotype, recreating tadpoles likely to develop as intermediate phenotypes in each generation.
