Female reproductive competition explains variation in prenatal investment in wild banded mongooses.

ABSTRACT: Female intrasexual competition is intense in cooperatively breeding species where offspring compete locally for resources and helpers. In mammals, females have been proposed to adjust prenatal investment according to the intensity of competition in the postnatal environment (a form of 'predictive adaptive response'; PAR). We carried out a test of this hypothesis using ultrasound scanning of wild female banded mongooses in Uganda. In this species multiple females give birth together to a communal litter, and all females breed regularly from one year old. Total prenatal investment (size times the number of fetuses) increased with the number of potential female breeders in the group. This relationship was driven by fetus size rather than number. The response to competition was particularly st

SUBMITTER: Inzani EL 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4730225 | biostudies-literature | 2016 Jan

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature