Environmental and demographic drivers of male mating success vary across sequential reproductive episodes in a polygynous breeder.

ABSTRACT: Ecological and social factors underpinning the inequality of male mating success in animal societies can be related to sex ratio, sexual conflict between breeders, effects of nonbreeders, resource dispersion, climatic conditions, and the various sequential stages of mating competition that constitute the sexual selection process. Here, we conducted an individual-based study to investigate how local resource availability and demography interact with annual climate conditions to determine the degree of male mating inequality, and thus opportunity for sexual selection across two sequential reproductive episodes (harem and subsequent mate acquisition) in a naturally regulated (feral) horse population in Sable Island National Park Preserve, Canada. Using a 5-year, spatially explicit, mark-resig

SUBMITTER: Manning JA 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6509369 | biostudies-literature | 2019 May

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature