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The reproductive behavior of semi-wild and feral horses is described briefly in order to provide a background on the reproductive patterns and the specific behavioral elements comprising courtship and mating in the horse. The reproductive behavior of the domestic stallion is discussed at length as are various breeding conditions and normal breeding performance. Finally, sexual behavior problems are considered.
Recent studies of Drosophila courtship mutants provide a molecular foundation for sexual orientation and behaviour.
The stereotyped courtship songs of 'age-limited' songbirds, which learn their songs during a specific early period of their lives, were once thought immutable, but recent studies suggest that their maintenance may actually rely on subtle cues provided by auditory feedback.
Male Pieris napi butterflies previously have been shown to synthesize and transfer an antiaphrodisiac, methyl salicylate (MeS), to females at mating. This substance curtails courtship and decreases the likelihood of female remating. Here, we show that similar systems occur in Pieris rapae and Pieris brassicae. In P. rapae, 13C-labeling studies showed that males utilize the amino acids phenylalanine and tryptophan as precursors to MeS and indole, respectively. These volatiles are transferred to females at mating and function as antiaphrodisiacs, as demonstrated by field tests entailing painting MeS, indole, or a mixture on the abdomens of virgin females and assessing their attractiveness to wild males. With P. brassicae, 13C-labeling studies showed that males use phenylalanine as a precursor to synthesize benzyl cyanide, which was demonstrated to function as an antiaphrodisiac by field tests similar to those for P. rapae. This communication system exhibits both similarities and differences among the three species; in P. napi and P. rapae, males are fragrant but transfer a volatile antiaphrodisiac to females that is completely different from the male odor, whereas in P. brassicae the antiaphrodisiac transferred by male to female is identical with male odor.
Data are presented on social and vocal learning in cowbirds (Molothrus ater) housed in large aviaries and given more degrees of freedom than in conventional experimental studies. The studies show that social and vocal outcomes are facultative responses to social contexts. Several findings are reviewed: First, cowbirds quickly self-organize into groups by age and sex; second, opportunities to interact across age and sex do exist and affect courtship competence; third, female cowbirds organize themselves differently in the presence and absence of male competition; and fourth, young, naive cowbirds show rapid and differential sensitivity to group dynamics. Taken as a whole, the data show that social Umwelten are dynamic, developmental ecologies.
Five variables were studied relating to the emergence of sociality in hand-reared cowbirds (Molothrus ater): proximity, sex assortment, reactions to adults, head-down displays, and vocalizations. The authors were especially interested in female sociality because adult female birds influence male courtship, song content, and use through proximity, attention, and displays. The authors found that young female birds failed to show same-sex affiliation typical of the species at any point in the study. Brief introduction of adults did not affect social patterns. Adults used more head-down displays than juveniles, who used more displays with familiar peers. Directed and undirected singing emerged concurrently; directed singing was positively correlated with earlier hatching. This is the first demonstration of the need for early learning in the development of female sociality.
Models of sexual selection in polygynous species of animals have been derived on the assumption that some females have preferences to mate with males with particular genotypes. The mating advantage gained by the males is always frequency-dependent because the preferred males take part in the same number of preferential matings when they are rare as when they are common; individually therefore, they mate more often when they are rare. Frequency-dependent sexual selection has been demonstrated in many experiments with Drosophila: rare males take part in a higher proportion of matings than their frequency as available mates. Ehrman and Spiess explained this phenomenon by frequency-dependence either in female preference or in male courtship. This explanation, which is difficult to interpret in behavioural terms, may not be necessary, however, because constant female preferences would entail frequency-dependent selection among the males. I show here that a simple model of constant preferences for particular phenotypes or genotypes is sufficient to explain a large body of data on frequency-dependent sexual selection in Drosophila.
Models of sexual selection generally assume that behavioural courtship displays reflect intrinsic male qualities such as condition, and that males display with maximum intensity to attract females to mate. Here we use robotic females in a field experiment to demonstrate that male satin bowerbirds (Ptilonorhynchus violaceus) do not always display at maximum intensity - rather, successful males modulate their displays in response to signals from females. Our results indicate that sexual selection may favour those males that can produce intense displays but which know how to modify these according to the female response.
Dance is believed to be important in the courtship of a variety of species, including humans, but nothing is known about what dance reveals about the underlying phenotypic--or genotypic--quality of the dancer. One measure of quality in evolutionary studies is the degree of bodily symmetry (fluctuating asymmetry, FA), because it measures developmental stability. Does dance quality reveal FA to the observer and is the effect stronger for male dancers than female? To answer these questions, we chose a population that has been measured twice for FA since 1996 (ref. 9) in a society (Jamaican) in which dancing is important in the lives of both sexes. Motion-capture cameras created controlled stimuli (in the form of videos) that isolated dance movements from all other aspects of visual appearance (including FA), and the same population evaluated these videos for dancing ability. Here we report that there are strong positive associations between symmetry and dancing ability, and these associations were stronger in men than in women. In addition, women rate dances by symmetrical men relatively more positively than do men, and more-symmetrical men value symmetry in women dancers more than do less-symmetrical men. In summary, dance in Jamaica seems to show evidence of sexual selection and to reveal important information about the dancer.
Drosophila melanogaster is sexually dimorphic for cuticular hydrocarbons, with males and females having strikingly different profiles of the long-chain compounds that act as contact pheromones. Gas-chromatographic analysis of sexual mosaics reveals that the sex specificity of hydrocarbons is located in the abdomen. This explains previous observations that D. melanogaster males display the strongest courtship toward mosaics with female abdomens. We also show that males of the sibling species Drosophila simulans preferentially court D. melanogaster mosaics with male abdomens. Because the primary male hydrocarbon in D. melanogaster is also the primary female hydrocarbon in D. simulans, this supports the idea that interspecific differences in cuticular hydrocarbons contribute to sexual isolation.
When a couple become erotically pair-bonded, whether for a night or a lifetime, they are by definition committed to each other erotically. That is the minimum. The degree varies. The commitment may be limited to the proceptive phase of solicitation or courtship, or it may include the acceptive phase of coitus, or it may extend to the conceptive phase of parenthood. People "fall in love with their fantasy" and project onto the partner a range of future commitments. If the partner fails to reciprocate, the pair-bond weakens and the partnership either dissolves or becomes eligible for marital counseling or sex therapy.
Ten couples from a marriage enrichment program for newlyweds and 68 female graduates from a high school course on family life were surveyed about their involvement in and their perceptions of the effectiveness of premarital counseling for preparing them for the realities of married life. Perceived effectiveness of premarital counseling was found to be related to duration of counseling in hours and to the degree to which the program was seen as voluntary. Perceived effectiveness was not consistently related to the duration of courtship. Suggestions for future research with larger samples are presented, along with recommendations for program design in premarital counseling programs.
Sex is not about reproduction; sex is about (re-)combination of DNA. Sex, not reproduction, always involves physical contact between two individuals; to achieve this, strategies of sexual behavior evolved. Sexual behavior, therefore, did not evolve as part of a reproductive strategy, but evolved to enable exchange of genetic material. In multicellular organisms the situation is more complicated than in unicellular organisms, as it is impossible for each cell within a multicellular body to have sex with another cell. Hence, evolution selected a system in which the possibility to have sex was limited to only one cell-line: the germ cells. As a result, sex adopted the character of fertilization, and sex and reproduction became inseparably linked. Still, in some species, including humans, sexual behavior still exhibits features of its evolutionary past: in humans (like in bonobo's) most sexual activity and many sexual behavioral patterns have nothing to do with reproduction (masturbation, homosexual behavior, for example); in humans, sexual behavior also became associated with other strategic objectives, such as intensifying the pair bond, expression of love or power. Different genders - male and female - evolved, and each gender evolved typical gender-related sexual and reproductive strategies as well. In most multicellular species, these strategies became inextricably mixed, and sexual behavior increasingly more - and in most species even exclusively - 'served' the interests of reproduction: sexual behavior became more or less synonymous with reproductive behavior. In most species, the 'mix' of sexual and reproductive strategies evolved into typical gender-related patterns of behavior, that is, in typical 'sex-roles'. Often, males are bigger and more 'beautiful' (= more intensely ornamented) than females; males compete with each other for access to females; males court females, while females choose males ('female choice'). However, ecological circumstances may cause a reversal of sex-roles, resulting in a situation in which females are bigger and more intensely ornamented than males, females compete for access to males, females court males and only males invest in care for the young, provided they are relatively certain of their paternity. Also, as in the case of the spotted hyena, females may be highly virilized and be socially dominant. This 'sex-role reversal' is seen, e.g., when males are relatively rare due to high predation pressure, or when the process of reproduction is very risky for the same reason: then it is 'better' that males, with their plenty of sperm, are wasted, than females with their few, precious eggs. It can be argued, with women being the fair sex, exhibiting competitive behavior and with an actively displaying courtship, and with men investing heavily in their offspring, meanwhile taking all (cultural) kinds of measures to guarantee their paternity, that humans, too, exhibit some degree of sex-role reversal.
Nonuse of contraception at first intercourse among adolescents is well documented in the adolescent sexuality research literature. This study provides a formal test of the hypothesis that an increase in the courtship period (i.e., waiting time to intercourse) increases the likelihood that a couple will discuss contraception and use it at first intercourse. The data analyzed are from personal interviews with 1,314 women aged 20-29 in the 1983 National Survey of Unmarried Women. The results are mixed about the effect of waiting time on contraceptive behavior, providing weak support for the hypothesis, but also elucidating individual and relative characteristics of the couples, such as age and education of the respective partners, that affected contraceptive behavior at first intercourse. Support for the hypothesis may prove more robust in data with different characteristics from the survey used here.
Recently, models of sympatric speciation have suggested that assortative mating can develop between sympatric morphs due to divergence in an ecologically important character. For example, in sympatric pairs of threespine stickleback (Gasterosteus aculeatus L.) size-assortative mating seems to be instrumental in reproductive isolation. Here, we examine courtship behaviour and assortative mating of newly described sympatric stickleback morphs in Lake Thingvallavatn, Iceland. We find that the two morphs show strong positive assortative mating. However, the mechanism involved in mate choice does not seem to be as straightforward as in other similar systems of sympatric stickleback morphs and may involve variation in nest type.
When individuals receive different returns from their reproductive investment dependent on mate quality, they are expected to invest more when breeding with higher quality mates. A number of studies over the past decade have shown that females may alter their reproductive effort depending on the quality/attractiveness of their mate. However, to date, despite extensive work on parental investment, such a differential allocation has not been demonstrated in fish. Indeed, so far only two studies from any taxon have suggested that females alter the quality of individual offspring according to the quality/attractiveness of their mate. The banggai cardinal fish is an obligate paternal mouth brooder where females lay few large eggs. It has previously been shown that male size determines clutch weight irrespective of female size in this species. In this study, I investigated whether females perform more courtship displays towards larger males and whether females allocate their reproductive effort depending on the size of their mate by experimentally assigning females to either large or small males. I found that females displayed more towards larger males, thereby suggesting a female preference for larger males. Further, females produced heavier eggs and heavier clutches but not more eggs when paired with large males. My experiments show that females in this species adjust their offspring weight and, thus, presumably offspring quality according to the size of their mate.
The social organization of the gerenuk in Tsavo East National Park, Kenya, is characterized by single adult male on territories encompassing their entire home ranges, small female-groups of variable composition, often associated with territorial male, and small groups of subadult male. There appear to be no non-territorial adult male ("bachelors"). Subadult male wander about considerably, often alone, before they succeed in taking over a territory. Territorial male perform linked urination/defecation and mark dry twigs with the antorbital gland secretion. Agonistic and courtship behaviour resemble those of other gazelles. Mother-young relations conform to the "hider type" among bovids.
Hybrids obtained in the laboratory between two subspecies of Drosophila paulistorum possess a genetic constitution which is discordant enough so that the hybrid females repel the courtship of all males, and will mate with none. The hybrid males will court and will be rejected by almost all females, including their own hybrid siblings.