THESIS RESEARCH 2009/2010:
Dominance rank, mating effort and energy use in male chimpanzees, Pan troglodytes
Study site: Kanywara, Kibale National Park, Uganda
The energetic costs of primate male reproductive effort have traditionally been viewed as negligible, particularly compared to the costs incurred by females. Female fecundity and lifetime fitness are crucially dependent on favorable feeding conditions and thus female ranging decisions and social relationships are strongly affected by food distribution and abundance.
Since it has been assumed that energy is not a limiting resource for male reproduction, the importance of foraging has largely been overlooked in models of male behavioral strategies. Similarly, in human behavioral ecology, male foraging decisions have been put primarily in the context of providing food for others. Yet, competing for access to mates can require significant energetic investment for both male primates and humans, and thus resource access may limit male sexual opportunities.
This study will reassess the validity of previous tenets in the field of male reproductive ecology by examining the question of whether male behavioral mating effort is constrained by energy availability. To test this hypothesis, I will conduct a field study of chimpanzees at Kanyawara, Uganda that will address the following three questions:
(1) Does habitat-wide food abundance affect the energetic allocation to mating effort;
(2) Do males of high rank, and thus with superior reproductive success, consistently invest more energy into behavioral mating effort than lower-ranking individuals; and
(3) Is dominance rank a factor that determines the level of variation in male investment in mating effort as a result of fluctuating food availability?
Therefore, this project offers potential theoretical and methodological contributions and offers valuable data to compare foraging strategies of male humans with an apt model for the last common ancestor or apes and humans.
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