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Description: A central question in ecology and evolution is to understand why sexual selection varies so much in strength across taxa. Here, we contend that temperature, a critical abiotic ecological factor at a global taxonomic scale, can be a critical modulator of sexual selection. We outline the main pathways by which temperature can affect the strength of sexual selection and related phenomena (e.g. sexual conflict). This framework suggests that temperature may modulate sexual selection in ways that, depending on species-specific underlying mechanisms, can both exacerbate or buffer its intensity. We then tested this general prediction by conducting a meta-analysis of available studies experimentally manipulating temperature and reporting effects on the variance of male/female fitness components and/or traits under sexual selection. Our results show that temperature can have a large net impact on sexual selection in both sexes. Current studies focus on the direct effects that environmental temperature has on traits linked with individual fitness and population viability, ignoring eco-evolutionary feedbacks. Here, we show that studying the feedback between temperature and sexual selection processes can be vital to better understand variation in the strength of sexual selection in nature, and its consequences for population viability.