The influence of male takeovers on female dispersal in Colobus vellerosus.

Male takeovers affect male tenure, female mate choice and ultimately, individual reproductive success in group-living primates. In social systems with female philopatry and high male reproductive skew, male takeovers largely determine female mate choice, whereas in species with female dispersal, females have the option of deserting a new male. We focused on a species with facultative female dispersal to investigate which factors promote female desertion of males after takeover, using 15 cases (12 for which we have complete data on the takeover process and the female dispersal outcome).