A trade-off between precopulatory and postcopulatory trait investment in male cetaceans

Mating with multiple partners is common across species, and understanding how individual males secure fertilization in the face of competition remains a fundamental goal of evolutionary biology. Game theory stipulates that males have a fixed budget for reproduction that can lead to a trade-off betwe...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Evolution 2015-06, Vol.69 (6), p.1560-1572
Main Authors: Dines, James P., Mesnick, Sarah L., Ralls, Katherine, May-Collado, Laura, Agnarsson, Ingi, Dean, Matthew D.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Animal reproduction
Animals
Biological Evolution
Body Size
Cetacea
Cetacea - physiology
Cetaceans
Competitive Behavior
Evolution
Evolutionary biology
Female animals
Game theory
Male
Male animals
Marine
Marine mammals
Mating behavior
Mating Preference, Animal
Morphological evolution
Organ Size
Phenotypic traits
Phylogenetics
Phylogeny
Reproduction
reproductive strategies
Sex Characteristics
Sexual Behavior, Animal
sexual selection
Species Specificity
Sperm competition
Spermatozoa
Testes
Testis - anatomy & histology
trade-offs
Whales
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Summary:Mating with multiple partners is common across species, and understanding how individual males secure fertilization in the face of competition remains a fundamental goal of evolutionary biology. Game theory stipulates that males have a fixed budget for reproduction that can lead to a trade-off between investment in precopulatory traits such as body size, armaments, and ornaments, and postcopulatory traits such as testis size and spermatogenic efficiency. Recent theoretical and empirical studies have shown that if males can monopolize access to multiple females, they will invest disproportionately in precopulatory traits and less in postcopulatory traits. Using phylogenetically controlled comparative methods, we demonstrate that across 58 cetacean species with the most prominent sexual dimorphism in size, shape, teeth, tusks, and singing invest significantly less in relative testes mass. In support of theoretical predictions, these species tend to show evidence of male contests, suggesting there is opportunity for winners to monopolize access to multiple females. Our approach provides a robust dataset with which to make predictions about male mating strategies for the many cetacean species for which adequate behavioral observations do not exist.
ISSN:0014-3820
1558-5646
DOI:10.1111/evo.12676