CAS WS 101 Lecture Notes - Lecture 17: Cooperative Breeding, Allomothering, Simian

• School: Boston University
• Department: Women's, Gender, & Sexuality Studies
• Course: CAS WS 101
• Professor: Karen Warkentin

Document Summary

Evolutionary reduction of sexual dimorphism: males have strong nurturing potential, female-female competition and cooperative caring relationships. Individuals contribute to group and kin by allomothering selection is not just on individual reproduction. Individual behavior + social structure are highly variable and context-dependent. Cooperative breeding: extreme behavioral exibility, reproductive and non- reproductive social roles. Developmental plasticity: all complex phenotypes are affected by many genetic and environmental factors and interactions among them accumulate across generations. Phenotypic plasticity: when organisms develop in conditions outside the ancestral range of environments: phenotypic variation often increases and new phenotypes appear, could be used to explain more exclusive heterosexual and homosexual behavior in order to compare ancestors. Sexual neurobiology: sex and sexuality in human brains. Vertebrate brains are fundamentally bisexual because the neural circuits enabling both male typical and female typical sexual behavior are present in both male and female brains. Proceptivity: lust, libido affected by hormones, autonomous drive but not dependent on hormones in anthropoids.