Genetic analysis reveals promiscuity among female cheetahs

Gottelli, Dada; Wang, Jinliang; Bashir, Sultana; Durant, Sarah M.

doi:10.1098/rspb.2007.0502

Cited by 74 publications

(69 citation statements)

References 30 publications

(37 reference statements)

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“…Our discovery of shared reproduction among pack members, even including multiple sires in a given litter, suggests that this strategy contributes to ensuring the fitness of the pack and gene diversity in progeny (Gottelli et al 2007). This is advantageous in an unpredictable environment or when the risk of disease-related mortality is high (Sherman et al 1998).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Reproductive sharing and proximate factors mediating cooperative breeding in the African wild dog (Lycaon pictus)

Spiering

Somers

Maldonado

et al. 2009

Behav Ecol Sociobiol

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Although dominant African wild dogs (Lycaon pictus) are generally believed to be the sole breeders within a pack, earlier behavioral and endocrine data suggest that reproduction could be shared with subordinates. We performed an extensive behavioral, demographic, and genetic evaluation of a wild dog population in South Africa to examine the level of such sharing and the proximate mechanisms influencing reproductive contributions of each sex. While a majority of pups were born to dominants because of a lack of subordinate potential breeders, we discovered a substantial portion of reproductive sharing between dominants and subordinates. Compared with alpha females that mated annually, subordinate beta females bred in 54.5% of years whereas thetas never bred. The three topranking males all sired pups (56.0%, 32.0%, and 12.0%, respectively) when three or more adult males were present. With only two pack males, alpha and beta individuals shared reproduction nearly equally (55.2% and 44.8%, respectively), and litters of mixed paternity were discovered on eight of 15 (53.3%) occasions. A skewed adult sex-ratio and frequent alpha mortalities for females and behavioral aggression in males allowed most individuals to attain dominant status in their lifetime, creating a constantly shifting social hierarchy. Genetic parentage results corresponded to reported hormone profiles, suggesting physiological suppression in some lower-ranked individuals of both sexes. Thus, a combination of demographic, behavioral, and hormonal proximate factors mediates reproductive partitioning in wild dogs. We conclude that reproductive sharing can be significant in this species, especially for males that have less robust suppressive mechanisms than females.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Reproductive sharing and proximate factors mediating cooperative breeding in the African wild dog (Lycaon pictus)

Spiering

Somers

Maldonado

et al. 2009

Behav Ecol Sociobiol

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“…A cheetah data set: This data set was from a long-term ecological and genetic study of a cheetah population on the Serengeti plains of Tanzania (Gottelli et al 2007). In summary, 41 litters of cubs, 65 candidate fathers, and 33 known mothers of the litters were sampled and genotyped at up to 13 SSRs.…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Parentage and Sibship Inference From Multilocus Genotype Data Under Polygamy

2009

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Likelihood methods have been developed to partition individuals in a sample into sibling clusters using genetic marker data without parental information. Most of these methods assume either both sexes are monogamous to infer full sibships only or only one sex is polygamous to infer full sibships and paternal or maternal (but not both) half sibships. We extend our previous method to the more general case of both sexes being polygamous to infer full sibships, paternal half sibships, and maternal half sibships and to the case of a two-generation sample of individuals to infer parentage jointly with sibships. The extension not only expands enormously the scope of application of the method, but also increases its statistical power. The method is implemented for both diploid and haplodiploid species and for codominant and dominant markers, with mutations and genotyping errors accommodated. The performance and robustness of the method are evaluated by analyzing both simulated and empirical data sets. Our method is shown to be much more powerful than pairwise methods in both parentage and sibship assignments because of the more efficient use of marker information. It is little affected by inbreeding in parents and is moderately robust to nonrandom mating and linkage of markers. We also show that individually much less informative markers, such as SNPs or AFLPs, can reach the same power for parentage and sibship inferences as the highly informative marker simple sequence repeats (SSRs), as long as a sufficient number of loci are employed in the analysis.

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“…This repeated behaviour may indicate the lack of suitable males in the area for breeding, possibly due to human persecution. Alternatively, the females may be searching for numerous males to breed with in order to increase genetic variability, thereby possibly increasing cub survival (Gottelli et al 2007). …”

Section: Movementmentioning

confidence: 99%

Home Range Use of Free-Ranging Cheetah on Farm and Conservation Land in Botswana

Houser

Somers

Boast³

2009

South African Journal of Wildlife Research

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Cheetah (Acinonyx jubatus) movements should be considered when developing management strategies for long-term survival and coexistence with humans. Although work has been done in Namibia, South Africa and Tanzania little data on the home range and territory size of cheetah in Botswana has been published. This study aimed to estimate male and female home range sizes and daily movement on farmland and a game reserve in Botswana.

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Genetic analysis reveals promiscuity among female cheetahs

Cited by 74 publications

References 30 publications

Reproductive sharing and proximate factors mediating cooperative breeding in the African wild dog (Lycaon pictus)

Reproductive sharing and proximate factors mediating cooperative breeding in the African wild dog (Lycaon pictus)

Parentage and Sibship Inference From Multilocus Genotype Data Under Polygamy

Home Range Use of Free-Ranging Cheetah on Farm and Conservation Land in Botswana

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