What is obligate monogamy?
Obligate monogamy appears to occur when a solitary female cannot rear a litter without aid from conspecifics, but the carrying capacity of the habitat is insufficient to allow more than one female to breed simultaneously within the same home range.
What are the 4 mating systems?
There are four main mating systems: monogamy, polyandry, polygyny, and polygynandry. Monogamy is a system in which two animals mate with only one another. The prefix in monogamy—mono—comes from a Greek word that means one. Polyandry, polygyny and polygynandry are all different types of polygamy.
What is polygynous mating pattern?
Polygyny (/pəˈlɪdʒɪniː/; from Neo-Greek πολυγυνία, from πολύ- poly-, “many”, and γυνή gyne, “woman” or “wife”) is a mating system in which one male lives and mates with multiple females but each female only mates with a single male. Often in polygynous systems, females will provide the majority of parental care.
What is harem mating?
harem: A group of females associated with a single male. Typically the male in the harem defends his group of females. lek: A mating system which consists of an aggregation of males where each is seeking to attract a mate.
What is pen mating?
Pen-mating is the process of putting boars and females in the same pen for a designated period (usually 21 to 42 days) with an unsupervised copula- tory process. In Table I, a comparison can not be made between breeding pens due to boar age differences, number of boars per pen and number of sows in each pen.
What is Lekking behavior?
lek, in animal behaviour, communal area in which two or more males of a species perform courtship displays. Lek behaviour, also called arena behaviour, is found in a number of insects, birds, and mammals. Varying degrees of interaction occur between the males, from virtually none to closely cooperative dancing.
What is the definition of monogamy in sociology?
Definition of monogamy. 1 archaic : the practice of marrying only once during a lifetime. 2a : the state or custom of being married to only one person at a time. b : the state or practice of having only one sexual partner at a time young couples who practice monogamy.
Are there any mammals that are monogamous?
Monogamy in mammals. Lifelong monogamy is very rare; however, it is exemplified by species such as the prairie vole ( Microtus ochrogaster ). A vast majority of monogamous mammals practice sequential social monogamy where another male or female is accepted into a new partnership in the case of a partner’s death.
What is the best predictor of monogamy?
Female distribution seems to be one of the best predictors of the evolution of monogamy in some species of mammals. It is possible that monogamy evolved due to a low female availability or high female dispersion where males were unable to monopolize more than one mate over a period of time.
Does monogamy limit fitness differences in humans?
Monogamy is suggested to limit fitness differences, as males and females will mate in pairs. This would seem to be non-beneficial to males, but may not be in all cases. Several behaviors and ecological concerns may have led to the evolution of monogamy as a relevant mating strategy.