Abteilung Verhaltensökologie und Soziobiologie, Deutsches Primatenzentrum, Göttingen, Deutschland.
Published: April 2011
AI Article Synopsis
Article Abstract
Mate guarding is a male strategy to monopolize matings and thus to ensure paternity. Since in callitrichids female reproductive status is advertised by scent marks, one may expect mate guarding by chemical means. We addressed this question during an episode of consortship observed in a polyandrous trio of wild saddleback tamarins (Saguinus fuscicollis). During consortship, the consort male was the only one to allomark the female. Scent marking frequency decreased for all individuals, although the consort male marked more than the other male during consortship, while there was no difference in the previous period. During consortship, almost 50% of female scents were overmarked by the consort, and more than 56% of the consort's scent marks were employed to overmark the female's scents. Therefore, the other male had limited access to female scent marks. Mate guarding may thus have a chemical component in tamarins, and olfactory communication may play an important role in mating competition.
Insects copulate multiple times not only with different mates but also with the same mate, which is called repeated copulation. It occurs as a repeated alternation between copulation and mate-guarding, leading to the prolonged physical attachment between males and females. Particularly, in species where males forcefully grasp females, attempt to mate without courtship and exhibit repeated copulations, male and female morphological traits are expected to be associated with mating characteristics.
Attractiveness is not solely determined by a single sexual trait but rather by a combination of traits. Because the response of the chooser is based on the combination of sexual traits in the courter, variation in the chooser's responses that are attributable to the opposite-sex courter genotypes (i.e.
Alternative reproductive tactics are discrete, intrasexual differences in reproductive behaviour within a population. In some cases, these complex phenotypes are determined by autosomal supergenes or sex chromosomes-both of which exhibit reduced recombination and thus enable the linked inheritance of co-adapted alleles from multiple loci. Most alternative reproductive tactics in amphibians are plastic (and reversible), environmentally determined and lacking morphological differentiation, but a striking exception is found in the two-lined salamander (Eurycea bislineata) species complex.
The mate guarding theory of conservative clothing posits that veiling reduces women's physical allure and sexual attractiveness, thereby diminishing men's attraction towards them and deterring potential rivals for a woman's partner. This theory argues that the importance of veiling is influenced by ecological factors in a way that it is of higher importance to control women's sexuality in harsher environments to secure paternal investment. A prediction of this theory is that the importance of veiling should be influenced by community size, where individuals' reputations, specifically men's, might have different weightings, and their perceived sense of controlling a partner's activity may differ.
Vigilance in animals is essential for survival, as it impacts their ability to detect predators, which affects activities like foraging and mating; this study focuses on the Painted Stork in India, observing their nesting behaviors.*
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The research found that male Painted Storks are more vigilant than females due to their roles in protecting the nest and territoriality, and that parental vigilance increases as their young nestlings age.*
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Using camera techniques, the study identified that factors such as the number of visitors and neighbors, as well as specific habitat variables, significantly influence the storks' vigilance behavior, with higher levels observed at the National Zoological Park compared to Keoladeo National Park.*
