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Tag: "mates" at biology news

Bigger horns equal better genes

...the age when they begin competing for reproductive mates (7 to 12), horn length varies according to genetic diversity: the greater the diversity, the greater the length of the horns. The researchers believe the horn length discrepancies are evidence to support the mutation accumulation theory of agein...

Study investigates 'divorce' among Galapagos seabirds

...coast of Ecuador. Many Nazca booby females switch mates after successfully raising a chick, according to a Wake Forest University study scheduled for publication in the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences June 13. This is surprising because there is an advantage to staying t...

CU study reveals why starling females cheat

...superb starling females appear to stray from their mates for the sake of their chicks, according to recent ...ing females (Lamprotornis superbus) cheat on their mates for a variety of reasons. Some females mate with subordinate males from within their social group wh...

Ants show us how to make super-highways

...ts climb out of the potholes and follow their nest mates home," added Powell. "Broadly, our research demonstrates that a simple but highly specialised behaviour performed by a minority of ant workers can improve the performance of the majority, resulting in a clear benefit for the society as a whole." T...

The penalty of having a sister -- why sibling sex matters for male saiga antelopes

...ess in species where competition amongst males for mates is very high." The saiga antelope provides scientists with an ideal opportunity to investigate the effects of mixed-sex twin litters on size and development, because there are a high proportion of twin births in the population, and because the opt...

The price of vanity: Mating with showy males may reduce offspring's ability to fight off pathogens

In many animals, males advertise to potential mates with showy traits, many of which are linked to testosterone levels. However, a new study suggests that, in fish, choosing a flashier mate may cause future generations to be more susceptible to pathogens. In the January 2007 issue of The American Nat...

New study is first to link romantic relationships to genes

...rtebrate species and humans are inclined to prefer mates who have dissimilar MHC (major histocompatibility complex) genotypes, rather than similar ones. This preference may help avoid inbreeding between partners, as well as strengthen the immune systems of their offspring through exposure to a wider variet...

Huddling and a drop in metabolism allow penguins to survive the South Pole cold

...in their incubating task. After implantation, both mates were individually marked with colored strips and released together. Male and female penguins implanted with the loggers were observed daily in the colony using binoculars, at a distance of at least 10 to 20 meters. Breeding success of the entire ...

Why do some queen bees eat their worker bee's eggs?

...g to this theory, a species where the mother queen mates with multiple males would have more worker policing. This theory is widespread and in animal behavior textbooks. However, Hamilton's relatedness hypothesis was challenged in 2004 by researchers from the University of Lausanne, Switzerland. They co...

Queen bee promiscuity boosts hive health

...iculturists, especially since seeking out multiple mates takes more time and energy and puts the queens at greater peril for predator attacks. "Even though just one male provides all the sperm that a queen needs for the rest of her life, queen honeybees go out on mating flights and obtain sperm from a do...

For crickets, parasitic flies can stop the music

...Brockmann. On the one hand, singing and finding mates increases a male’s reproductive success; on the ot... many male crickets never sing, apparently finding mates by simply walking around until they encounter females. That raises the question, why sing in the fir...

Male chimpanzees prefer mating with old females

...nds, thereby making young females more valuable as mates with greater reproductive potential. The findings,...the preference of human males for young females as mates include the facts that humans tend to form long-term mating partnerships, and that female fertility ...

Wolves are suffering less from inbreeding than expected

...ductively active, or if they are more preferred as mates by the opposite sex, we do not know. - Even if selection is favouring the wolves that are genetically diverse, genetic variation will inevitably be lost over time in such a small population as this one. But it will take much longer than previously...

Zebra finch males prefer females with exaggerated maternal traits

...e of their parents may give birds a preference for mates with exaggerated parental traits, rather than trai...nner Konrad Lorenz. Nonetheless, most birds prefer mates in which specific traits are exaggerated compared with those of their parents. Because learning abou...

Researchers identify human DNA on the fast track

...stigator. After months of work, Salama and her lab mates determined that HAR1 is part of a larger DNA that is transcribed into RNA in the brain. Then Salama got lucky. Pierre Vanderhaegen, a neuroscientist at the University of Brussels, was visiting Santa Cruz because he knew Salama's husband, who is als...

Face perception is modulated by sexual orientation

... neural correlates for the assessment of potential mates for reproductive purposes. However, the researchers in fact did not find neural evidence in support of such dissociation between attractive faces of the opposite sex, reflecting reproductive benefits, and attractive faces of the same sex, reflecting ...

Males with elevated levels of testosterone lead shorter lives but have more success siring offspring

...ring, the extended effects on offspring and female mates were generally negative and may ultimately constrain the evolution of higher testosterone levels in males," conclude the authors. ...

Attractive birds more immune against bird flu

...lso help explain why animals that choose their own mates produce healthier offspring than animals whose mates are selected by humans. ...

Duck-billed dino crests not linked to sense of smell

...sts were used to create resonant sounds to attract mates or warn of predators, or that they were used for visual display in mate selection or species recognition, similar to feather crests in some birds. ...

Ocean 'dead zones' trigger sex changes in fish, posing extinction threat

...e species ?an inability of their offspring to find mates and reproduce. The researchers found that low levels of dissolved oxygen, also known as hypoxia, can induce sex changes in embryonic fish, leading to an overabundance of males. As these predominately male fish mature, it is unlikely they will be ab...

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