Marlene Zuk is a Professor in the Department of Ecology, Evolution, and Behavior at the University of Minnesota Twin Cities. She has researched into sexual selection for 25 years and in addition to authoring many scholarly articles has written four books for general readers, including Sexual Selections: What We Can and Can't Learn About Sex from Animals (2002, University of California Press) and Sex on Six Legs: Lessons on Life, Love and Language from the Insect World (a New York Times "Editor's Choice"). Her work has appeared in a wide variety of science magazines as well as the Wall Street Journal and other general outlets.

Leigh W Simmons is professor in the School of Animal Biology at the University of Western Australia, and Director of the UWA Centre for Evolutionary Biology. He has worked for nearly 40 years on sexual selection, primarily in insects, but also in frogs and mammals, including humans. Leigh is the author of Sperm Competition (2001, Princeton University Press); and co-edited Ecology and Evolution of Dung Beetles (2011, Wiley-Blackwell), with T. James Ridsdill-Smith; and The Evolution of Insect Mating Systems (2014, Oxford University Press), with David M Shuker.

• 1: Darwin's Other Big Idea


• 2: Choosing from the field of competitors


• 3: Sex roles and stereotypes


• 4: Sexual selection after mating


• 5: Sexual conflict


• 6: Mating systems, or who goes with whom, and for how long


• 7: How Sex Makes Species Survive


• Further Reading


• Index