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Reproductive seasonality is a poor predictor of receptive synchrony and male reproductive skew among nonhuman primates

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Abstract

Among nonhuman primates, male reproductive skew (i.e., the distribution of reproductive success across males) appears to be affected primarily by receptive synchrony and the number of males per group. These factors have been assumed to depend on reproductive seasonality, with strong seasonality increasing receptive synchrony, which in turn reduces the strength of male monopolization associated with more males and lower skew. Here we tested the importance of reproductive seasonality for 26 populations representing 15 species living in multimale groups. We obtained data from the literature on paternity, number of males per group, receptive synchrony, and three measures of seasonality of reproduction. We analyzed these data using bivariate regressions and hierarchical regression by sets and controlled for the effect of evolutionary relationships using phylogenetic generalized least squares. As expected, alpha male paternity decreased as the number of males per group increased as well as with increasing female receptive synchrony. Reproductive seasonality did not explain variation in reproductive skew over and above the variation explained by synchrony and the number of males. Reproductive seasonality alone only explained a small proportion of the variation in skew, and there was no strong association between reproductive seasonality and synchrony. The effects of receptive synchrony and reproductive seasonality as well as their link were reduced if we excluded captive populations. These results indicate that across primates male reproductive skew is related to the number of competitors in a group and that seasonality does not reliably predict synchrony or male reproductive skew.

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Acknowledgments

We thank Carola Borries, Leone Brown, Diane Doran-Sheehy, James Herrera, and Charles Nunn as well as Peter Henzi and two anonymous reviewers for suggestions and discussions. We are especially grateful to Diane Doran-Sheehy who suggested checking for the influence of captivity. We are thankful to Wolfgang Dittus and Becca Lewis for their help with the data. For training in phylogenetic comparative methods, we thank the AnthroTree Workshop (supported by NSF BCS-0923791). While conducting this study, Jan F. Gogarten was supported by a Graduate Research Fellowship from the National Science Foundation (Grant number: DGE-1142336).

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  1. Interdepartmental Doctoral Program in Anthropological Sciences, Stony Brook University, Stony Brook, NY, 11794-4364, USA

    Jan F. Gogarten

  2. Department of Biology, McGill University, 855 Sherbrooke Street West, Montreal, QC, H3A 2T7, Canada

    Jan F. Gogarten

  3. Department of Anthropology, Stony Brook University, Stony Brook, NY, 11794-4364, USA

    Andreas Koenig

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  1. Jan F. Gogarten
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Correspondence to Jan F. Gogarten.

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Communicated by P. M. Kappeler

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Gogarten, J.F., Koenig, A. Reproductive seasonality is a poor predictor of receptive synchrony and male reproductive skew among nonhuman primates. Behav Ecol Sociobiol 67, 123–134 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00265-012-1432-2

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