Wednesday, November 19, 2014

Aggressive male Chimpanzee's will father more offspring

Research has found that male chimpanzee’s that are more aggressive toward females tend to father more offspring over time. Joseph Feldblum and his colleagues from Duke University conducted the research in a chimpanzee community that was living in Tanzania’s Gombe National Park that has been under close observation for the last 50 years. The community was so well watched that, it was know that who mated with who and also who the biological fathers of almost all of the chimpanzees born since 1995 were, because of the genetic tests done.

When examining the aggressive males, they looked at two different periods that the female chimpanzees go through. A period of time when they were sexually receptive and swollen compared to a period when they were not. Following the observation, their analyses showed that the males that were aggressive with the females during the swollen period were more likely to mate, but they did not have a greater paternity success. As for the high-ranking males that were aggressive with the females during the period when they were not swollen, they produced more offspring. Therefore, the results show that long-term patterns of intimidation give high-ranking males a higher number of offspring. This is the first example of genetic evidence of sexual coercion that is used as an adaptive strategy in any social mammal.

I found this article interesting because the title made me curious on how intimidation could help a male produce more offspring. However, after reading the article I understand how common aggressive male-female relationships are in chimpanzee populations. Therefore, it totally makes sense that in order to mate and reproduce with the females, it is necessary to be more intimidating and aggressive in order to be more successful. 


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