Voice pitch predicts reproductive success in male hunter-gatherers

Voice pitch predicts reproductive success in male hunter-gatherers.

The validity of evolutionary explanations of vocal sexual dimorphism hinges upon whether or not individuals with more sexually dimorphic voices have higher reproductive success than individuals with less dimorphic voices. However, due to modern birth control methods, these data are rarely described, and mating success is often used as a second-rate proxy. Here, we test whether voice pitch predi...

Voice pitch alters mate-choice-relevant perception in hunter-gatherers.

In humans, voice pitch is thought to be a cue of underlying quality and an important criterion for mate choice, but data from non-Western cultures have not been provided. Here we test attributions to and preferences for voices with raised and lowered pitch in hunter-gatherers. Using a forced-choice playback experiment, we found that both men and women viewed lower pitched voices in the opposite...

Activity Predicts Male Reproductive Success in a Polygynous Lizard

Activity patterns and social interactions play a key role in determining reproductive success, although this is poorly understood for species that lack overt social behaviour. We used genetic paternity analysis to quantify both multiple paternity and the relative roles of activity and social behaviour in determining reproductive success in a nondescript Australian lizard. During the breeding se...

Horticulturalists and Hunter-Gatherers

Bird odour predicts reproductive success

Please cite this article in press as: Whittaker 10.1016/j.anbehav.2013.07.025 Although the importance of chemical communication in birds has long been overlooked or doubted, volatile compounds in avian preen secretions have been shown to covary with traits including species, sex and breeding condition, and thus may be useful mate recognition cues. Here we demonstrate for the first time that the...