Sexual Selection of Mating Systems
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- Bonobo males gain access to females with grooming and being friendly towards infants
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- Humans often show high levels of male parental care
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- Macaque mothers get no care from the males who try to mate with as many females as possible
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- Marmosets are small monkeys where both the mother and the father care equally for the infants
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- Human infants require large amounts of care that can come from both parents
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- In lemurs, females raise the infants without help from the male
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- Shuar men clearing a field. Researchers from ICDS (Larry Sugiyama, Josh Snodgrass, Felicia Madimenos, and Melissa Liebert) have found that men with pregnant or lactating wives increase their activity levels, likely in order to compensate for their partners’ elevated reproductive costs
Group Members:
Frances White, John Orbell, Michel Waller, Nicholas Malone
This group uses theoretical modeling and studies from animal behavior to examine human mating behavior in an evolution context. Alternative mating systems evolve when different strategies return equivalent reproductive success within a population and are not traits that “make the best of a bad job” by minimizing the loss of reproductive success due to poor competitive status. Alternative mating systems in non-human primates include intrasexual selection of male-male competition and intersexual selection of female choice and are more common when paternal investment in offspring is minimal. In humans and other primates with high paternal investment, it is less clear why females choose males displaying an alternative, non-investing strategy. We use game theoretic modeling of female choice to examine the evolutionary thresholds under which a female in a pair-bond would choose an extra-pair copulation with a non-investing male. This group is working on examining models that show when females with a typical mating system of long-term mate choice for investing males should make a short-term choice of a non-investing male.
