Skip to main content
  • Other Publications
    • Philosophical Transactions B
    • Proceedings B
    • Biology Letters
    • Open Biology
    • Philosophical Transactions A
    • Proceedings A
    • Royal Society Open Science
    • Interface
    • Interface Focus
    • Notes and Records
    • Biographical Memoirs

Advanced

  • Home
  • Content
    • Latest issue
    • All content
    • Subject collections
    • Special features
    • Videos
  • Information for
    • Authors
    • Reviewers
    • Readers
    • Institutions
  • About us
    • About the journal
    • Editorial board
    • Author benefits
    • Policies
    • Citation metrics
    • Publication times
    • Open access
  • Sign up
    • Subscribe
    • eTOC alerts
    • Keyword alerts
    • RSS feeds
    • Newsletters
    • Request a free trial
  • Submit
You have accessRestricted access

Do extra-group fertilizations increase the potential for sexual selection in male mammals?

Kavita Isvaran, Sumithra Sankaran
Published 25 October 2017.DOI: 10.1098/rsbl.2017.0313
Kavita Isvaran
Centre for Ecological Sciences, Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore 560012, India
  • Find this author on Google Scholar
  • Find this author on PubMed
  • Search for this author on this site
  • ORCID record for Kavita Isvaran
  • For correspondence: kavita@iisc.ac.in
Sumithra Sankaran
Centre for Ecological Sciences, Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore 560012, India
  • Find this author on Google Scholar
  • Find this author on PubMed
  • Search for this author on this site
  • Article
  • Figures & Data
  • Info & Metrics
  • eLetters
  • PDF
Loading

Abstract

Fertilizations by males outside the social breeding group (extra-group paternity, EGP) are widespread in birds and mammals. EGP is generally proposed to increase male reproductive skew and thereby increase the potential for sexual selection, but the generality of this relationship is unclear. We extracted data from 27 mammals in seven orders and used phylogenetic comparative methods to investigate the influence of EGP and social mating system on measures of inequality in male fertilization success, which are indices of the potential for sexual selection. We find that EGP and social mating system can predict the potential for sexual selection in mammalian populations, but only when considered jointly and not individually. EGP appears to increase the potential for sexual selection but only when the degree of social polygyny is relatively low. When social polygyny is high, EGP appears to result in a more uniform distribution of reproduction and a decrease in the potential for sexual selection. A possible explanation to be investigated is that the phenotype of extra-group fathers differs systematically across social mating systems. Our findings have implications for the use of EGP and social mating system as indices of sexual selection in comparative analyses of trait evolution under sexual selection.

Footnotes

  • Electronic supplementary material is available online at https://dx.doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare.c.3899404.

  • Received May 26, 2017.
  • Accepted September 29, 2017.
  • © 2017 The Author(s)
http://royalsocietypublishing.org/licence

Published by the Royal Society. All rights reserved.

View Full Text

Sign in for Fellows of the Royal Society

Fellows: please access the online journals via the Fellows’ Room

Not a subscriber? Request a free trial

Log in using your username and password

Enter your Biology Letters username.
Enter the password that accompanies your username.
Forgot your user name or password?

Log in through your institution

You may be able to gain access using your login credentials for your institution. Contact your library if you do not have a username and password.

Pay Per Article - You may access this article or this issue (from the computer you are currently using) for 30 days.

Regain Access - You can regain access to a recent Pay per Article or Pay per Issue purchase if your access period has not yet expired.

PreviousNext
Back to top
PreviousNext
October 2017
Volume 13
, issue 10
Biology Letters: 13 (10)
  • Table of Contents
  • About the Cover
  • Index by author
  • Ed Board (PDF)

Keywords

extra-group paternity
opportunity for sexual selection
mating system
mammals
Share
Do extra-group fertilizations increase the potential for sexual selection in male mammals?
Kavita Isvaran, Sumithra Sankaran
Biol. Lett. 2017 13 20170313; DOI: 10.1098/rsbl.2017.0313. Published 25 October 2017
del.icio.us logo Digg logo Reddit logo Twitter logo CiteULike logo Connotea logo Facebook logo Google logo Mendeley logo
Email

Thank you for your interest in spreading the word on Biology Letters.

NOTE: We only request your email address so that the person you are recommending the page to knows that you wanted them to see it, and that it is not junk mail. We do not capture any email address.

Enter multiple addresses on separate lines or separate them with commas.
Do extra-group fertilizations increase the potential for sexual selection in male mammals?
(Your Name) has sent you a message from Biology Letters
(Your Name) thought you would like to see the Biology Letters web site.
Print
Manage alerts

Please log in to add an alert for this article.

Sign In to Email Alerts with your Email Address
Citation tools
Research article:

Do extra-group fertilizations increase the potential for sexual selection in male mammals?

Kavita Isvaran, Sumithra Sankaran
Biol. Lett. 2017 13 20170313; DOI: 10.1098/rsbl.2017.0313. Published 25 October 2017

Citation Manager Formats

  • BibTeX
  • Bookends
  • EasyBib
  • EndNote (tagged)
  • EndNote 8 (xml)
  • Medlars
  • Mendeley
  • Papers
  • RefWorks Tagged
  • Ref Manager
  • RIS
  • Zotero

Article reuse

  • Article
    • Abstract
    • 1. Introduction
    • 2. Material and methods
    • 3. Results
    • 4. Discussion
    • Data accessibility
    • Authors' contributions
    • Funding
    • Acknowledgements
    • Footnotes
    • References
  • Figures & Data
  • Info & Metrics
  • eLetters
  • PDF

See related subject areas:

  • evolution
  • behaviour

Related articles

Cited by

Large datasets are available through Biology Letters' partnership with Dryad

Open biology

  • BIOLOGY LETTERS
    • About this journal
    • Contact information
    • Purchasing information
    • Submit
    • Author benefits
    • Open access membership
    • Recommend to your library
    • FAQ
    • Help

Royal society publishing

  • ROYAL SOCIETY PUBLISHING
    • Our journals
    • Open access
    • Publishing policies
    • Conferences
    • Podcasts
    • News
    • Blog
    • Manage your account
    • Terms & conditions
    • Cookies

The royal society

  • THE ROYAL SOCIETY
    • About us
    • Contact us
    • Fellows
    • Events
    • Grants, schemes & awards
    • Topics & policy
    • Collections
    • Venue hire
1744-957X

Copyright © 2018 The Royal Society