ANT211H5 Lecture Notes - Lecture 5: Multiple Sex Partners, Mating System, Internal Fertilization
Document Summary
Taxonomy is a poor predictor of a mating system. Mating systems are different strategies in which species try to optimize their reproductive success systems that describe a species; there are many different mating systems in particular species. Social systems are immensely variable; each species has a different mating system, taxonomy is a poor indicator of mating systems. Examine ecological conditions to determine the variables that influence a certain population (whether they are based on solitary mating systems or etc) Ecological conditions influence the social organization of a population. Provides a functional explanation for behavioral differences between species. What is better than taxonomy is comparing the environment and the polygamy of a species" mating systems. Degree of effective polygamy of a mating system is observed through a ratio of male fitness/variance over the reproductive variance of females. The number of available reproductive females per females in a reproductive group.
