To lek or not to lek: mating strategies of male fallow deer

Apollonio, Marco; Festa-Bianchet, Marco; Mari, Franco; Mattioli, Stefano; Sarno, Benedetta

doi:10.1093/beheco/3.1.25

Cited by 85 publications

(58 citation statements)

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“…In this time period, we observed the agonistic behavior of fallow deer bucks during the rut. As described for other high-density populations [Apollonio et al, 1992;Ciuti et al, 2004;Davini et al, 2004], the studied fallow deer adopted a mixed mating system: some of the males defended their territory on a lek (with 2-5 resident bucks) while others defended a single, isolated territory. Since most of the fighting activities occurred on the leks (unpublished), we therefore only used the data that came from the lek.…”

Section: Methods Study Area and Animalsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Estimation of the probability of fighting in fallow deer (Dama dama) during the rut

Bartoš

Fričová

Bartošová-Víchová

et al. 2006

Aggressive Behavior

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Fighting between males is a frequent component of the rutting behavior of Cervidae. Frequent conflicts are exhausting; fighting may be risky and can lead to serious injuries or even death. We focused on the process of assessment of the opponent's fighting ability and escalation of the combat, estimating the probability of fighting based on the encounter components such as groaning and parallel walk. In this study, we observed the agonistic behavior of fallow deer bucks (Dama dama) during the rut over four seasons. During this time, we recorded 205 encounters between bucks. Non-contact display, which allows contestants to assess their opponents fighting ability, occurred in 83% of the encounters. The highest predicted probability of a fight was found when both of the males vocalized and turned into the parallel walk. The chance of a clear outcome decreased when the males were fighting in comparison to when they did not fight. The initiator of the competitive encounter won 41% of the cases, while the attacked buck won 23% of the encounters. If the contestants avoided fighting, however, the initiator won 78% of encounters. Therefore, the initiator was more successful when no fight occurred compared to when the encounters escalated into fighting. In most cases where ritualized behavior occurred, one of the opponents left after vocalization or parallel walk occurred. Thus, vocalization and parallel walk increased the probability for a clear outcome. The probability of a fight was lowest in situations where the males displayed asymmetric behavior. Increased symmetry of the contestants' behavior was strongly correlated with a higher probability of a fight. Thus, these results indicate that fallow deer bucks use efficient tactic during the rut, which, in turn, minimizes the chance of injury while fighting during the breeding season. Aggr. Behav. 33:7-13, 2007. r

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Section: Methods Study Area and Animalsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Estimation of the probability of fighting in fallow deer (Dama dama) during the rut

Bartoš

Fričová

Bartošová-Víchová

et al. 2006

Aggressive Behavior

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“…In addition, females may be able to assess vigor by observing male fighting and similar forms of competition, by indirectly detecting the outcome of male-male competition, or by inciting male competition and selecting the winner (Cox and LeBoeuf, 1977;Byers et al, 1994;Bro-Jorgensen, 2002). In many lek-breeding species, females prefer to mate with males that occupy territories at the spatial centre of the lek (Hoglund and Lundberg, 1987;Apollonio et al, 1992;Kokko et al, 1999;Isvaran and Jhala, 2000;Bro-Jorgensen and Durant, 2003). Here, to the extent that males compete for central locations, the female preference is for vigor.…”

Section: Motor Performance As Vigormentioning

confidence: 99%

Female mate choice based upon male motor performance

2010

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“…Further studies are needed to clarify the reason for the temporal increase in mating success during tenure (see also Apollonio et al 1992). One possibility is that females use the duration of territorial tenure as an indicator of male quality.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Queuing in space and time reduces the lek paradox on an antelope lek

Bro‐Jørgensen

2011

Evol Ecol

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Lek systems, where females often use centrality to assess male quality, highlight a general paradox in evolutionary biology: how can female preferences for males providing good genes persist when consequential strong directional selection is predicted to deplete additive genetic variance in male quality and thereby obliterate benefits of choosiness? An explanation contributing to the resolution of this lek paradox may be that genetic variance is retained when an indirect mate choice cue, such as centrality on a lek, is an imperfect indicator of male genetic quality. Here I investigate whether the presence of alternative male mating tactics limits the reliability of centrality as a quality indicator in lek-breeding topi antelopes. Whereas males establishing territories directly on the central lek were relatively large, smaller peripheral males regularly shifted their territories centripetally and in this way also occasionally obtained central territories. By such opportunistic queuing, small males could increase their mating success drastically; however, their territorial tenure in the lek centre was relatively short, consistent with moderate competitive ability. These results suggest that male topi antelopes can obtain central lek territories through alternative mating tactics, providing scope for variance in male quality on the central lek. In a separate finding, the mating success of central males was found to increase during territorial tenure, independent of estimated age. The demonstration of queuing in both space and time on a mammalian lek highlights the importance of considering male tactical dynamics over time in order to avoid an inflated appearance of the lek paradox.

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To lek or not to lek: mating strategies of male fallow deer

Cited by 85 publications

References 0 publications

Estimation of the probability of fighting in fallow deer (Dama dama) during the rut

Estimation of the probability of fighting in fallow deer (Dama dama) during the rut

Female mate choice based upon male motor performance

Queuing in space and time reduces the lek paradox on an antelope lek

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