Sexual Alliances: Evidence and Evolutionary Implications

Mesnick, Sarah L.

doi:10.1007/978-1-4615-5985-6_9

Cited by 60 publications

(40 citation statements)

References 149 publications

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“…Secondly, the bodyguard hypothesis (Emlen and Wrege, 1986;Smuts and Smuts, 1993;Mesnik, 1997) extends the threat that selects females to associate with a protector male to all kinds of sexual coercion (Smuts and Smuts, 1993) males may inflict upon females. Fork-marked lemur males are not associated with their pair partner (Schülke and Kappeler, 2003), and thus, can not serve as bodyguards.…”

Section: Male Help Persuades Femalesmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…for good genes (Pomiankowski, 1988), male reproductive success will be extremely skewed and it will pay low quality males to persuade single females into monogamy via 1 of 3 sets of means (Gowaty, 1996): 1) Males may help females to increase their survival or the survival of their offspring, though female reproductive success will be reduced by mating with a low quality male. Males may aid females via reducing predation (male-defense-against-predators hypothesis: Dunbar, 1988;van Schaik and Dunbar, 1990), reducing infanticide by males (infanticide-avoidance hypothesis: van Schaik and Dunbar, 1990;van Schaik and Kappeler, 1997) or male coercion in general (bodyguard hypothesis: Emlen and Wrege, 1986;Smuts and Smuts, 1993;Mesnik, 1997), or via paternal care (male parental care hypothesis: Kleiman, 1977). 2) Males may aggressively coerce females into monogamy via forced copulations, punishment of infidelity and aggressive mate guarding (mate-guarding hypothesis: Brotherton and Manser, 1997, Brotherton and Komers, 2003, Palombit, 1999 females-as-a-widely dispersed-resource hypothesis: Emlen and Oring, 1977;Wrangham, 1979, Van Schaik and Van Hooff, 1983, Rutberg, 1983.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 98%

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Evolution of Pair-Living in Phaner furcifer

Schülke

2005

Int J Primatol

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Pair-living evolved several times independently in the primate lineage and most likely for more than one reason. Currently, there are 7 hypotheses regarding the evolution of pair-living in primates. They may explain several but not all cases. I investigated the applicability of the explanations to fork-marked lemurs Phaner furcifer. I used information from a long-term study on 8 fork-marked lemur families in Kirindy Forest to evaluate the hypotheses. Fork-marked lemurs live in uniform dispersed pairs, which share and defend a territory but spend three-quarters of their activity time apart from each other. Unconditional female dominance and lack of permanent close association between pair-partners disqualify most hypotheses. Lack of male parental care and long travel distances in small home ranges disqualify other explanations. I conclude that there is no support a priori for any current pair-living hypothesis and that the newly formulated intersexual-feeding-competition hypothesis best explains the evolution of pair-living in fork-marked lemurs. Accordingly, female range exclusivity evolved first as a consequence of intense feeding competition. Subsequently, indirect feeding competition drove females to accept a single male to share their territory as a defense against feeding competition from males whose ranges unsystematically overlap those of several females. This situation led to pair-living because formation of dispersed one-malemultifemale-units was too costly for males in terms of reduced foraging efficiency.

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Section: Male Help Persuades Femalesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 98%

Evolution of Pair-Living in Phaner furcifer

Schülke

2005

Int J Primatol

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“…For instance, pair-bonds are common in nonhuman primates even in the absence of paternal care, suggesting they often develop to serve other functions or as a response to socio-ecological constraints. Such pair-bonds might be predicated on the distribution of females (Cluttonbrock, 1989), the dynamics of male-male competition and mate guarding (Hawkes et al, 1995b), low variance and high lethality in male competitiveness (Chapais, 2008;Preuschoft and Paul, 1999), or the need for male protectors of females and infants (Mesnick, 1997;Palombit, 1999). If pair-bonding provides other forms of benefits, or if the arrangement becomes established as the most common strategy (a system which might be resistant to invasion by alternative strategies), the investment pathways for men's surplus production might be limited, and paternal investment may be the most beneficial avenue, despite a seemingly low return (Chapais, 2008).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The total cost of father desertion

Winking

Gurven

2011

American J Hum Biol

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“…Male defense strategy can be associated with 1) female protection against the potential access by other males or groups (mate defense hypothesis; Palombit 1999); 2) female protection against sexual coercion by other males (bodyguard hypothesis; Emlen and Wrege 1986;Mesnik 1997); 3) vigilance against predators (maledefense-against-predator hypothesis; van Schaik and Dunbar 1990;Wittenberger and Tilson 1980); and 4) defense of the feeding territory by competitors (resource defense hypothesis; Thalmann 2001).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Ranging Behavior and Possible Correlates of Pair-Living in Southeastern Avahis (Madagascar)

Norscia

Borgognini-Tarli

2008

Int J Primatol

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Researchers have proposed several hypotheses to explain pair-living in primates. In particular, when males are not involved in direct parental care, pairliving may be related to female dispersal, infanticide prevention, or male mate/ resource defense. We aimed to evaluate, through a better understanding of the ranging patterns of avahis, which hypotheses may best account for pair-living in these nocturnal lemurs. We collected focal observations over 26 nights, JuneSeptember 2004, in a littoral forest (Sainte Luce, southeastern Madagascar) on 4 adult radiocollared avahis [Avahi laniger (Tattersall, I. (1982). The Primates of Madagascar. Columbia University Press, New York.) or Avahi meridionalis (Zaramody in Primate Reports 74:9-22, 2006)]. We followed 2 males and 2 females from 2 groups: B, a male-female couple, and A, comprising the parental pair and 1-yr-old female offspring. The adult females birthed in August. We recorded resting and feeding tree points (via global positioning system) for home range calculation through minimum convex polygon and kernel methods. We provide the first quantitative information on the ranging behavior of 2 male and 2 female avahis. Home range/daily path length values (means) are higher than the ones previously reported for the same and other folivorous pair-living lemur species. On average, the 2 females spent more time feeding and traveled shorter distances than the 2 males did. Male-female cohesion (mean values), possibly enhanced by offspring presence, was higher in A and after births than in B and before births, respectively. Although male avahis may be forced into pair-living owing to energy constraints related to size, locomotion, and diet, females might accept pair-living in exchange for indirect territory defense and mate guarding.

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Sexual Alliances: Evidence and Evolutionary Implications

Cited by 60 publications

References 149 publications

Evolution of Pair-Living in Phaner furcifer

Evolution of Pair-Living in Phaner furcifer

The total cost of father desertion

Ranging Behavior and Possible Correlates of Pair-Living in Southeastern Avahis (Madagascar)

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