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. 2011;6(8):e23105.
doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0023105. Epub 2011 Aug 10.

Concealed fertility and extended female sexuality in a non-human primate (Macaca assamensis)

Affiliations

Concealed fertility and extended female sexuality in a non-human primate (Macaca assamensis)

Ines Fürtbauer et al. PLoS One. 2011.

Abstract

In numerous primates living in mixed-sex groups, females display probabilistic cues of fertility to simultaneously concentrate paternity to dominant males while diluting it amongst others as a means to reduce the risk of infanticide and to increase male care for offspring. A few species, however, lack these cues and potentially conceal fertility from males; yet, to date, little is known about mating patterns and their underlying proximate mechanisms in such species. Here, we investigated mating activity and sexual consortships relative to female reproductive state in wild Assamese macaques (Macaca assamensis), a species where females lack prominent anogenital swellings and copulation calls. During two mating seasons (2837 contact hours) we recorded sexual and social behaviors, sexual consortships, and collected 1178 fecal samples (n = 15 females) which were analyzed for progestogen concentrations to assess female reproductive state and to determine the timing of ovulation and conception. Although mostly conceiving in their first ovarian cycle, females were sexually receptive throughout the entire 4-month mating season, and within-cycle mating frequencies were not increased during fertile phases. Dominant males did not monopolize fertile matings, and consortships by high-ranking males lasted for long periods, which were not exclusively linked to female fertile phases. Furthermore, females copulated promiscuously but not randomly, i.e. for almost every female, matings were concentrated to a certain male, irrespective of male rank. Collectively, we demonstrate that fertility is undisclosed to males. The extreme extended female sexuality facilitated by concealed fertility may allow females to create differentiated mating relationships within a promiscuous mating system. Our study provides important new insight into the plasticity of female sexuality in non-human primates.

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Conflict of interest statement

Competing Interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1. Female receptivity in relation to the hormonally determined timing of conception.
Females marked with an asterisk conceived during the second, others during the first cycle of the mating season. Black squares indicate receptive days. The shaded area denotes the females' fertile phase.
Figure 2
Figure 2. Female daily copulation frequencies in relation to reproductive state.
(A) during the entire mating season, including non-fertile, fertile, and pregnant stages (n = 13 females, two mating seasons), and (B) within conception cycles, i.e. during the prefertile, fertile, and postfertile phase (i.e. the five days preceding the fertile phase, the five-days fertile phase, and the five days following the fertile phase). For detailed definitions see methods. The boxes indicate medians (line) and upper and lower quartiles. The whiskers indicate the 90th and 10th percentiles. ***: p
Figure 3
Figure 3. Distribution of copulations across the females' mating partners.
Data are combined for two mating seasons (MS 07/08: 7 females, 13 males; MS 08/09: 8 females, 15 males). Note that not all females mated with all males, and that males are ranked separately for each female, i.e. numbers do not denote individuals, e.g. 1 = the most mated male for each female (including 8 different, high-and low-ranking, adult and large subadult males), 2 = the second most mated male, etc.
Figure 4
Figure 4. Sexual consortships in relation to the timing of hormonally determined female fertile phases.
Data are presented for MS 07/08 (A) and MS 08/09 (B). White boxes indicate conception cycles and shaded boxes non-conception cycles, respectively.

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