Mate guarding and paternity in mandrills: factors influencing alpha male monopoly

Setchell, Joanna M.; Charpentier, Marie; Wickings, E. Jean

doi:10.1016/j.anbehav.2005.02.021

Cited by 128 publications

(83 citation statements)

References 68 publications

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“…Even if a larger sample size would be required to test it definitively, our results support the notion that the a male was able to discriminate in favor of conceptive cycles [Alberts et al, 2006;Bulger, 1993;Deschner et al, 2004;Engelhardt et al, 2004;Gesquiere et al, 2007;Setchell et al, 2005b;Weingrill et al, 2003]. However, Bercovitch [1987] showed that male baboons did not act in a manner indicating that they could pinpoint a conception cycle in advance.…”

Section: Male-male Competition and Reproductive Skewsupporting

confidence: 56%

Relationship between sexual interactions and the timing of the fertile phase in captive female Japanese macaques (Macaca fuscata)

Garcia

Shimizu

Huffman

2009

American J Primatol

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Japanese macaques live in multi-male/multi-female social groups in which competition between males, female mate choice, and alternative male mating strategies are important determinants of mating and reproductive success. However, the extent to which adult males rely on female behavior to make their mating decisions as well as the effect of social rank on mating success are not clear as results are inconclusive, varying from study to study. In this study, we combined behavioral and endocrine data of 14 female Japanese macaques to examine the relationship between ovarian cycle phase and frequency of sexual behaviors, and to investigate how social rank influences sexual behavior in this species. We found that there was no increase in female proceptive behaviors during the fertile phase of the ovarian cycle, suggesting that female behaviors did not clearly signal the probability of conception. In spite of that, the frequencies of ejaculatory copulations were highest during this phase, indicating that the attractivity of females increased significantly during the period with higher probability of conception. Males, and especially the highest ranking male, were able to discriminate females nearing ovulation and to concentrate their mating effort, implying that the timing of ovulation was not concealed from them. The alpha male seemed able to monopolize most female matings, which is probably due in part to the low number of females simultaneously ovulating and to the limited number of inconspicuous places that the lower ranking males have to mate with females and avoid alpha male aggression. All together, these results suggest that different males may have access to different signals of ovulation and/or are differentially restrained as to how they can act on that information. The exact nature of the estrogen-related cues males use to recognize female reproductive status, and to what extent males use them warrants further investigation.

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Section: Male-male Competition and Reproductive Skewsupporting

confidence: 56%

Relationship between sexual interactions and the timing of the fertile phase in captive female Japanese macaques (Macaca fuscata)

Garcia

Shimizu

Huffman

2009

American J Primatol

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“…Males begin to develop secondary sexual adornments at 6-7 years of age [24,28] but do not attain social maturity or mate until they reach adulthood at more than 9 years old [23]. Using their especially long canines as weapons [29], adult males compete fiercely with each other, and only a few dominant individuals gain access to fertile females [30].…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Natural simian immunodeficiency virus transmission in mandrills: a family affair?

et al. 2012

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Understanding how pathogens spread and persist in the ecosystem is critical for deciphering the epidemiology of diseases of significance for global health and the fundamental mechanisms involved in the evolution of virulence and host resistance. Combining long-term behavioural and epidemiological data collected in a naturally infected mandrill population and a Bayesian framework, the present study investigated unknown aspects of the eco-epidemiology of simian immunodeficiency virus (SIV), the recent ancestor of HIV. Results show that, in contrast to what is expected from aggressive and sexual transmission (i.e. the two commonly accepted transmission modes for SIV), cases of SIVmnd-1 subtype were significantly correlated among related individuals (greater than 30% of the observed cases). Challenging the traditional view of SIV, this finding suggests the inheritance of genetic determinants of susceptibility to SIV and/or a role for behavioural interactions among maternal kin affecting the transmission of the virus, which would highlight the underappreciated role of sociality in the spread of infectious diseases. Outcomes of this study also provide novel insights into the role of host social structure in the evolution of pathogens.

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“…In particular, we know that high-ranking males are unable to monopolize reproductive opportunities when more than one female is simultaneously in oestrus; the effects of oestrus synchrony on male reproductive success are incorporated into the priority of access model, in which the degree of cycle overlap determines how many males will gain access to mates (Altmann 1962). In several recent studies, the priority of access model has been shown to be a good predictor of the mating patterns of cercopithecine primates living in multimale groups during at least some periods of time (Bulger 1993;Weingrill et al 2000;Alberts et al 2003;Weingrill et al 2003;Takahashi 2004;Setchell et al 2005). Furthermore, when the priority of access model does not predict mating patterns, the model has provided a useful framework for understanding the dynamics of maleemale competition (e.g.…”

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confidence: 99%

Sexual selection in wild baboons: from mating opportunities to paternity success

2006

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In mammals, high dominance rank among males is often associated with mating success. However, mating opportunities do not automatically translate into offspring production; observed mating success may be discordant with offspring production, for three reasons.(1) Observed mating may be nonrepresentative of actual mating if some mating is surreptitious (decreasing the chance that it will be observed), (2) mating may be nonrandom if some males allocate more mating effort to females with high fertility (i.e. if some males differentially invest in higher fertility mating) and (3) conception success may be nonrandom if sperm competition or sperm selection play a role in conception. We performed a genetic analysis of paternity in the well-studied savannah baboon, Papio cynocephalus, population in the Amboseli basin, eastern Africa, in order to measure the concordance between observed mating success and actual offspring production. We found that observed mating success was generally a good predictor of paternity success, that high-ranking males had higher paternity success than lower-ranking males, and that male density and male rank stability contributed to variance in male paternity success. We found little evidence for successful surreptitious mating (although subadult males did occasionally produce offspring, apparently using this strategy), and no clear evidence for differential sperm success or sperm depletion (although we could not rule them out). However, we found clear evidence that high-ranking males showed mate choice, concentrating their mating efforts on females experiencing conceptive rather than nonconceptive cycles.

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Mate guarding and paternity in mandrills: factors influencing alpha male monopoly

Cited by 128 publications

References 68 publications

Relationship between sexual interactions and the timing of the fertile phase in captive female Japanese macaques (Macaca fuscata)

Relationship between sexual interactions and the timing of the fertile phase in captive female Japanese macaques (Macaca fuscata)

Natural simian immunodeficiency virus transmission in mandrills: a family affair?

Sexual selection in wild baboons: from mating opportunities to paternity success

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