Recent years have seen an explosion of interest in the overlap between kin selection and sexual selection, particularly concerning how kin selection can put the brakes on harmful sexual conflict. However, there remains a significant disconnect between theory and empirical research. Whilst empirical work has focused on kin-discriminating behaviour, theoretical models have assumed indiscriminating behaviour. Additionally, theoretical work makes particular demographic assumptions that constrain the relationship between genetic relatedness and the scale of competition, and it is not clear that these assumptions reflect the natural setting in which sexual conflict has been empirically studied. Here, we plug this gap between current theoretical and empirical understanding by developing a mathematical model of sexual conflict that incorporates kin discrimination and different patterns of dispersal. We find that kin discrimination and group dispersal inhibit harmful male behaviours at an individual level, but kin discrimination intensifies sexual conflict at the population level.

近年来，人们对亲属选择和性选择之间的重叠越来越感兴趣，尤其是在亲属选择如何制止有害的性冲突方面。但是，理论与实证研究之间仍然存在重大脱节。尽管实证研究的重点是亲属歧视行为，但理论模型却假设是不歧视行为。此外，理论工作做出了特定的人口假设，这些假设限制了遗传相关性和竞争规模之间的关系，并且尚不清楚这些假设是否反映了对性冲突进行过自然研究的自然环境。这里，我们通过建立包含亲属歧视和不同分散模式的性冲突数学模型，填补了当前理论和经验理解之间的差距。我们发现，亲属歧视和群体分散会在个人层面抑制有害的男性行为，但亲属歧视会加剧人口层面的性冲突。