Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in

Why Males Compete Rather Than Care, with an Application to Supplying Collective Goods

  • Original Article
  • Published:
Bulletin of Mathematical Biology Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

The question of why males invest more into competition than offspring care is an age-old problem in evolutionary biology. On the one hand, paternal care could increase the fraction of offspring surviving to maturity. On the other hand, competition could increase the likelihood of more paternities and thus the relative number of offspring produced. While drivers of these behaviours are often intertwined with a wide range of other constraints, here we present a simple dynamic model to investigate the benefits of these two alternative fitness-enhancing pathways. Using this framework, we evaluate the sensitivity of equilibrium dynamics to changes in payoffs for male allocation to mating versus parenting. Even with strong effects of care on offspring survivorship, small competitive benefits can outweigh benefits from care. We consider an application of the model that includes men’s competition for hunting reputations where big game supplies a benefit to all and find a frequency-dependent parameter region within which, depending on initial population proportions, either strategy may outperform the other. Results demonstrate that allocation to competition gives males greater fitness than offspring care for a range of circumstances that are dependent on life-history parameters and, for the large-game hunting application, frequency dependent. The greater the collective benefit, the more individuals can be selected to supply it.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Log in via an institution

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Institutional subscriptions

Fig. 1
Fig. 2
Fig. 3
Fig. 4
Fig. 5

Similar content being viewed by others

References

  • Andersson BM (1994) Sexual selection. Princeton University Press, Princeton

    Google Scholar 

  • Balshine S (2012) Patterns of parental care in vertebrates. In: Royle NJ, Smiseth PT, Kölliker M (eds) The evolution of parental care, chapter 4, 1st edn. Oxford University Press, Oxford, pp 62–80

    Google Scholar 

  • Bateman AJ (1948) Intra-sexual selection in drosophila. Heredity 2(Pt. 3):349–368

    MathSciNet  Google Scholar 

  • Berbesque JC, Marlowe FW (2009) Sex differences in food preferences of Hadza hunter–gatherers. Evol Psychol 7(4):147470490900700409

    Google Scholar 

  • Bird R (1999) Cooperation and conflict: the behavioral ecology of the sexual division of labor. Evol Anthropol Issues News Rev 8(2):65–75

    Google Scholar 

  • Blurton Jones NG (2016) Demography and evolutionary ecology of Hadza hunter–gatherers. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge

    Google Scholar 

  • Clutton-Brock T (1991) The evolution of parental care. Princeton University Press, Princeton

    Google Scholar 

  • Clutton-Brock TH, ParkerParker GA (1992) Potential reproductive rates and the operation of sexual selection. Q Rev Biol 67(4):437–456

    Google Scholar 

  • Cockburn A (2006) Prevalence of different modes of parental care in birds. Proc R Soc Lond B Biol Sci 273(1592):1375–1383. https://doi.org/10.1098/rspb.2005.3458

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Coxworth JE, Kim PS, McQueen JS, Hawkes K (2015) Grandmothering life histories and human pair bonding. Proc Nat Acad Sci 112(38):11806–11811. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1599993112

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Darwin C (1859) On the origin of species by means of natural selection, or preservation of favoured races in the struggle for life. John Murray, London

    Google Scholar 

  • Darwin C (1874) The descent of man, and selection in relation to sex. John Murray, London

    Google Scholar 

  • Dewsbury DA (2005) The Darwin-Bateman paradigm in historical context. Integr Comp Biol 45(5):831–837

    Google Scholar 

  • Fisher DA (1930) The genetical theory of natural selection. Clarendon Press, Oxford

    MATH  Google Scholar 

  • Fromhage L, Michael DJ (2016) Coevolution of parental investment and sexually selected traits drives sex-role divergence. Nat Commun 7:12517

    Google Scholar 

  • Grafen A (1990a) Sexual selection unhandicapped by the Fisher process. J Theor Biol 144(4):473–516

    MathSciNet  Google Scholar 

  • Grafen A (1990b) Biological signals as handicaps. J Theor Biol 144(4):517–546

    MathSciNet  Google Scholar 

  • Gurven G, Kaplan H (2007) Longevity among hunter–gatherers: a cross-cultural examination. Popul Dev Rev 33(2):321–365

    Google Scholar 

  • Hardin G (1998) Extensions of “the tragedy of the commons”. Science 280(5364):682–683

    Google Scholar 

  • Hawkes K (1991) Showing off: tests of an hypothesis about men’s foraging goals. Ethol Sociobiol 12(1):29–54

    Google Scholar 

  • Hawkes K (1993) Why hunter–gatherers work: an ancient version of the problem of public goods. Curr Anthropol 34(4):341–361

    Google Scholar 

  • Hawkes K, Bird BB, Kristen Hawkes and Rebecca Bliege Bird (2002) Showing off, handicap signaling, and the evolution of men’s work. Evol Anthropol Issues News Rev 11(2):58–67

    Google Scholar 

  • Hawkes K, O’Connell JF, Blurton Jones NJ (1991) Hunting income patterns among the Hadza: big game, common goods, foraging goals and the evolution of the human diet. Philos Trans R Soc B Biol Sci 334(1270):243–251

    Google Scholar 

  • Hawkes K, O’Connell JF, Blurton Jones NG (1997) Hadza women’s time allocation, offspring provisioning, and the evolution of long postmenopausal life spans. Curr Anthropol 38(4):551–577

    Google Scholar 

  • Hawkes K, O’Connell JF, Blurton Jones NG (2001a) Hadza meat sharing. Evol Hum Behav 22(2):113–142

    Google Scholar 

  • Hawkes K, O’Connell JF, Blurton Jones NG, Bell D, Bird R, Bird D, Hames R, Ivey P, Judge D, Kazankov A et al (2001b) Hunting and nuclear families: some lessons from the hadza about mens work. Curr Anthropol 42(5):681–709

    Google Scholar 

  • Hawkes K, O’Connell JF, Jones NGB (2014) More lessons from the Hadza about men’s work. Hum Nat 25(4):596–619

    Google Scholar 

  • Henshaw JM, Fromhage L, Jones AG (2019) Sex roles and the evolution of parental care specialization. Proc R Soc B 286(1909):20191312

    Google Scholar 

  • Hill K, Kaplan H, Hawkes K, Hurtado AM (1985) Men’s time allocation to subsistence work among the ache of eastern Paraguay. Hum Ecol 13(1):29–47

    Google Scholar 

  • Hill K, Kaplan H, Hurtado AM (1987) Foraging decisions among ache hunter–gatherers: new data and implications for optimal foraging models. Ethol Sociobiol 8(1):1–36

    Google Scholar 

  • Hill K, Hurtado AM (1996) Ache life history: the ecology and demography of a foraging people. Aldine de Gruyter, New York

    Google Scholar 

  • Houston AI, Szèkely T, McNamara JM (2005) Conflict between parents over care. Trends Ecol Evol 20(1):33–38

    Google Scholar 

  • Hurtado AM, Hill K, Hurtado I, Kaplan H (1992) Trade-offs between female food acquisition and child care among hiwi and ache foragers. Hum Nat 3(3):185–216

    Google Scholar 

  • Hurtado AM, Hawkes K, Hill K, Kaplan H (1985) Female subsistence strategies among ache hunter–gatherers of eastern Paraguay. Hum Ecol 13(1):1–28

    Google Scholar 

  • Isaac G (1978) The food-sharing behavior of protohuman hominids. Sci Am 238(4):90–109

    Google Scholar 

  • Janicke T, Häderer IK, Lajeunesse MJ, Anthes N (2016) Darwinian sex roles confirmed across the animal kingdom. Sci Adv 2(2):e1500983

    Google Scholar 

  • Jennions MD, Fromhage L (2017) Not all sex ratios are equal: the Fisher condition, parental care and sexual selection. Philos Trans R Soc B Biol Sci 372(1729):20160312

    Google Scholar 

  • Kim PS, Coxworth JE, Hawkes K (2012) Increased longevity evolves from grandmothering. Proc R Soc Lond B Biol Sci 279(1749):4880–4884

    Google Scholar 

  • Kim PS, McQueen JS, Coxworth JE, Hawkes K (2014) Grandmothering drives the evolution of longevity in a probabilistic model. J Theor Biol 353:84–94

    MATH  Google Scholar 

  • Hope K, Suzanne HA, Michael BB (2012) Theoretical foundations of parental care. In: Nick JR, Smiseth TP, Mathias K (eds) The evolution of parental care, chapter 2, 1st edn. Oxford University Press, Oxford, pp 21–36

    Google Scholar 

  • Knott DC (2001) Female reproductive ecology of the apes: implications for human evolution. In: Ellison P (ed) Reproductive ecology and human evolution. Aldine, New York, NY, pp 429–463

    Google Scholar 

  • Kokko H, Jennions MD (2008) Parental investment, sexual selection and sex ratios. J Evol Biol 21(4):919–948

    Google Scholar 

  • Kokko H, Jennions MD (2012) Sex differences in parental care. In: Kölliker M (ed) The evolution of parental care, chapter 6. Oxford University Press, Oxford, pp 101–116

    Google Scholar 

  • Lancaster JB, Lancaster CS (1983) Parental investment: the hominid adaptation. In: Ortner DJ (ed) How humans adapt: a biocultural odyssey. Smithsonian Institution Press, Washington, pp 33–56

    Google Scholar 

  • Lehtonen J, Parker GA (2014) Gamete competition, gamete limitation, and the evolution of the two sexes. Mol Hum Reprod 20(12):1161–1168

    Google Scholar 

  • Lehtonen J, Parker GA, Schärer L (2016) Why anisogamy drives ancestral sex roles. Evolution 70(5):1129–1135

    Google Scholar 

  • Loo SL, Chan MH, Hawkes K, Kim PS (2017a) Further mathematical modelling of mating sex ratios & male strategies with special relevance to human life history. Bull Math Biol 79(8):1907–1922

    MathSciNet  MATH  Google Scholar 

  • Loo SL, Hawkes K, Kim PS (2017b) Evolution of male strategies with sex-ratio-dependent pay-offs: connecting pair bonds with grandmothering. Philos Trans R Soc B Biol Sci 372(1729):20170041

    Google Scholar 

  • Marlowe FW (2007) Hunting and gathering: the human sexual division of foraging labor. Cross Cult Res 41(2):170–195

    Google Scholar 

  • Mcnamara JM, Székely T, Webb JN, Houston AI (2000) A dynamic game-theoretic model of parental care. J Theor Biol 205(4):605–623

    Google Scholar 

  • Parker GA (2014) The sexual cascade and the rise of pre-ejaculatory (Darwinian) sexual selection, sex roles, and sexual conflict. In: Cold Spring Harbor Perspectives in Biology, p a017509

  • Parker GA, Lehtonen J (2014) Gamete evolution and sperm numbers: sperm competition versus sperm limitation. Proc R Soc Lond B Biol Sci 281(1791):20140836

    Google Scholar 

  • Parker GA, Pizzari T (2015) Sexual selection: the logical imperative. In: Hoquet T (ed) Current perspectives on sexual selection: what’s left after Darwin? Chapter 7, 1st edn. Springer, New York

    Google Scholar 

  • Parker GA, Baker RR, Smith VGF (1972) The origin and evolution of gamete dimorphism and the male-female phenomenon. J Theor Biol 36(3):529–553

    Google Scholar 

  • Parker GA, Royle NJ, Hartley IR (2002) Intrafamilial conflict and parental investment: a synthesis. Philos Trans R Soc B Biol Sci 357(1419):295–307

    Google Scholar 

  • Queller DC (1997) Why do females care more than males? Proc R Soc Lond B Biol Sci 264(1388):1555–1557

    Google Scholar 

  • Robbins AM, Robbins MM, Gerald-Steklis N, Steklis HD (2006) Age-related patterns of reproductive success among female mountain gorillas. Am J Phys Anthropol 131(4):511–521

    Google Scholar 

  • Robson SL, Van Schaik CP, Hawkes K (2006) The derived features of human life history. In: Hawkes K, Paine R (eds) The evolution of human life history. School for Advanced Research Press, Sante Fe, pp 17–44

    Google Scholar 

  • Rose D, Kristen H, Peter SK (2019) Adult sex ratio as an index for male strategy in primates. Theor Popul Biol 126:40–50

    MATH  Google Scholar 

  • Ryan S, Adrian VB (2016) The evolution of monogamy in response to partner scarcity. Sci Rep 6:32472

    Google Scholar 

  • Sear R, Mace R (2008) Who keeps children alive? A review of the effects of kin on child survival. Evol Hum Behav 29(1):1–18

    Google Scholar 

  • Sellen DW (2007) implications for contemporary public health. Evolution of infant and young child feeding. Annu Rev Nutr 27:123–148

    Google Scholar 

  • Trivers R (1972) Parental investment and sexual selection. In: Campbell BG (ed) Sexual selection & the descent of man, chapter 7. Aldine de Gruyter, New York, pp 136–179

    Google Scholar 

  • Volk AA, Atkinson JA (2013) Infant and child death in the human environment of evolutionary adaptation. Evol Hum Behav 34(3):182–192

    Google Scholar 

  • Washburn SL, Lancaster CS (1968) The evolution of hunting. In: Lee RB, DeVore I (eds) Man the Hunter, chapter 32. Routledge, New York, pp 293–303

    Google Scholar 

  • Zahavi A (1975) Mate selection–a selection for a handicap. J Theor Biol 53(1):205–214

    Google Scholar 

  • Zahavi A (1977) The cost of honesty (further remarks on the handicap principle). J Theor Biol 67(3):603–605

    Google Scholar 

  • Zahavi A (1991) On the definition of sexual selection, Fisher’s model, and the evolution of waste and of signals in general. Anim Behav 42(3):501–503

    Google Scholar 

  • Zahavi A (1995) Altruism as a handicap: the limitations of kin selection and reciprocity. J Avian Biol 26(1):1–3

    Google Scholar 

Download references

Acknowledgements

The work of SLL was supported by the Australian Government Research Training Program Research Training Stipend. SLL, DR and PSK were supported by the Australian Research Council, Discovery Project (DP160101597)

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Biotechnology and Biomolecular Sciences, University of New South Wales, Sydney, NSW, 2052, Australia

    Sara L Loo

  2. School of Mathematics and Statistics, University of Sydney, Sydney, NSW, 2006, Australia

    Danya Rose & Peter S Kim

  3. Department of Anthropology, University of Utah, Salt Lake City, UT, 84112, USA

    Michael Weight & Kristen Hawkes

Authors
  1. Sara L Loo
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  2. Danya Rose
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  3. Michael Weight
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  4. Kristen Hawkes
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  5. Peter S Kim
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Sara L Loo.

Additional information

Publisher's Note

Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.

S. Loo and D. Rose contributed comparably.

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this article

Loo, S.L., Rose, D., Weight, M. et al. Why Males Compete Rather Than Care, with an Application to Supplying Collective Goods. Bull Math Biol 82, 125 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11538-020-00800-4

Download citation

  • Received:

  • Accepted:

  • Published:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11538-020-00800-4

Keywords

Search

Navigation