Cryptococcus neoformans is a major cause of fungal meningitis in predominantly immunocomprised individuals. This fungus has two mating-types/sexes, and mating typically requires two individuals with opposite mating types.

While humans may pride themselves on being highly evolved, most still behave like the stereotypical Neanderthals when it comes to choosing a mate, according to research by Indiana University cognitive scientist Peter Todd.

Picking a mate isn’t easy—if you are a female iguana. In a study published in the June 27th issue of the online, open-access journal PLoS ONE, Maren Vitousek of Princeton University and colleagues found that female Galбpagos marine iguanas spend a lot of energy picking a mate from a wide range of suitors – energy they could otherwise spend foraging, producing eggs, or avoiding predators.

Most research on sexual conflict ignores the fact that the fitness pay-offs of mating may change drastically over a short timescale, for example over a single day. In fowl, the probability that an insemination results in fertilization is lowest around midday when oviposition occurs and highest in the evening, indicating that both males and females should maximize copulation efficiency by mating in the evening.

Mating strategies are straightforward in bottlenose dolphins, or are they? Much of the work carried on male-female relationships in that species to date show that males tend to coerce females who are left with little choice about with whom to mate.