Aggressive, Forceful Males Are Not First Choice (water strider edition)

I was reading io9 this recently, and found an article about a study of water striders. Basically, the study was set up so that the water striders had a “wading pool equipped with special doors that could restrict movement between groups or allow the insects to move freely”

When the insects were allowed to move freely, the females would move over to the “gentlemen” insects, and lay “about three times more eggs” leaving the aggressive male water striders to stew in their own failure. Past lab studies restricted female water strider movement, but given the freedom to choose, female water striders chose the males without sexual aggression. i.e.: Male aggression does *not* lead to reproductive success.

As Annalee Newitz of io9 puts it: 

“Who knows how much research into sexual selection has been flawed because researchers forgot the crucial ingredient of female freedom?”

Not to mention that if one were to extrapolate from this study, it debunks all the “nice guys (no TM) finish last” myth. The image of hyper-masculinity, the forceful sexuality that supposedly leads to “scoring chicks” is actually a detriment to a male’s goal if that goal is to attract women. 

The article (along with a graph) is here: