Comparative psychology 10-7-25
Chapter 13: mating systems
Mating system: the social associations and number of sexual partners an
individual has during one breeding season
- Differ in the number of mating partners each sex has during one
breeding season
- Rabbits mate fast, elephants take longer
- Animals based on environmental resources
- How many individuals mate with other individuals
Mating system
- Monogamy – 1 female, 1 male
o Better for Female
o With biparental care means the individual stayed due to
Environmental resources are poor/difficult
- Polygyny – +1 female, 1 male
o Better for Male
- Polyandry – 1 female, +1 male
o Better for Female
- Polygynandry – multi male, multi female (in social circle)
- Promiscuity – muti male, multi female (not in social circle)
Evolutions of social mating system
Same species can exhibit more than one type of mating system
1. Environmental conditions
2. Fitness benefits and costs
3. Reproductive decisions
4. Mating systems
Emlen & Oring model
- Evolutionary factor = Sexual conflict: differential selection on males
and females to maximize their fitness
- Ecological factors = Resource amount (a little/a lot) and distribution
(clumped/dispersed) vary in different environments
- Female fitness – most often limited by access to resources to invest in
offspring (for egg production and care, parental care)
- Male fitness – most often limited by the number of males
Did biparental care favor the evolution of monogamy?
- California mice are monogamous
- Parental care by the father is important for the survival of the offspring
- Male care enhances reproductive success in monogamous mice
Monogamy without biparental care:
- Territorial cooperation hypothesis: when two individuals (one of each
sex) can better defend critical resource needed for reproduction
o More than likely” competition over territories is intense –
especially when survival rate outside the territory is low
o Snapping shrimp; Male/Female pairs won more contests than
solitary male/female
- Mate-guarding hypothesis: a single male can benefit by remaining
close to a single female during one or more reproductive cycles
o Females are fewer in numbers or finding them is hard
o Male snapping shrimp have favored a monogamous male???
The evolution of social mating system
Polygyny
- Female defense polygyny: A male monopolizes and mates with
aggregation (harem) of female directly
o Impana
o South American sea lion
- Resource defense polygyny: a male mates with multiple females
attracted to the resources he defends
o Carrion beetles
- Sometimes resources and females are more uniformly distributed – to
costly to defend
- So mates must seek each other out – high energetic and predation
costs
- Lek: a location where an aggregation of males display to females
- Male dominance polygyny: males often form a dominance
hierarchy, and dominant males obtain the most matings
Male dominance polygyny
- Hot spot hypothesis: Males can benefit by aggregating on leks near a
location in the environment where they are likely to encounter
females
o Great snipe
- Hot shot hypothesis: Males can benefit by aggregating on leks near
high-quality males that attract females
o Peafowl
Polyandry
- Conditions:
o When high predation on offspring
o Beneficial if female can reproduce more quickly and more often
o Possible if male provides parental care
o Benefit both sexes
o Certain fish and birds
Females can quickly lay multiple egg clutches
Female mated with multiple males and the male takes care
of the egg clutch
Polyandry and sex-role reversal
- Sex-role reversal: female exhibit high levels or territorial defense and
aggression while males provide high levels of parental care
o May be favored in resource-poor environments or where
predation on offspring is high
o Seen in Pipefish and Jacana
Polygynandry
- Plural breeding involving social associations (stay together/closely
associated with one another)
- Rare by does occurs in social species – when group has to defend
territory from other groups
- Spotted hyena
Promiscuity
- Conditions:
o Evolves when low benefit to social living
o No fitness benefits to pair-bonding
o Males and females are solitary
o Defense of mates and resources us uneconomical (happens when
population density is high or aggregations are too costly)
- Characterized by Scrambled competition: individuals compete with
one another to obtain copulations with multiple mates
o Seaweed fly males mount a female every 8 minutes and a
female can mate with hundreds of males.
Emlen and Oring’s model
- Mating systems are the result of the interaction between sexual
conflict and resource distribution
- Model allows us to predict – how variation in abundance of resources
(for example, amount of food) should affect a mating system.
Mating systems and conservation translocation programs
- Translocation programs should take into account mating system of
species
- Brindled wallabies
Mating systems
- Social mating system: based on observations of social associations
among the sexes
- Genetic mating system: based on the actual number of sexual
partners that contribute to a set of offspring
- Social and genetic mating systems differ when extra-pair mating
occurs:
o Extra-pair copulations – occur outside established social
associations (pair bonds)
o Genetic quality hypothesis: Females that engage in multi-
male matings can improve the fitness of their offspring via
genetic mechanisms