Drawing on life-history theory, it is predicted that individuals’ attitudinal orientation toward unrestricted short-term mating behavior, as well as their ability to engage in such behavior, are inversely related to nurturant emotional responses (tenderness) to infants. To test these hypotheses, participants (N = 305) completed measures assessing individual differences in short-term mating orie...

The reversal of conventional sex roles was enigmatic to Darwin, who suggested that it may evolve when sex ratios are female biased [1]. Here we present direct evidence confirming Darwin's hypothesis. We investigated mating system evolution in a sex-role-reversed beetle (Megabruchidius dorsalis) using experimental evolution under manipulated sex ratios and food regimes. In female-biased populati...

Scent communication plays a central role in the mating behavior of many nonhuman mammals but has often been overlooked in the study of human mating. However, a growing body of evidence suggests that men may perceive women's high-fertility body scents (collected near ovulation) as more attractive than their low-fertility body scents. The present study provides a methodologically rigorous replica...

In 1948, Angus J. Bateman reported a stronger relationship between mating and reproductive success in male fruit flies compared with females, and concluded that selection should universally favour 'an undiscriminating eagerness in the males and a discriminating passivity in the females' to obtain mates. The conventional view of promiscuous, undiscriminating males and coy, choosy females has als...

BACKGROUND Contrary to other Tephritidae, female but also male olive flies, Bactrocera oleae release pheromones during their sexual communication. Alpha-pinene, a common plant volatile found in high amounts in unripe olive fruit and leaves has been detected as one of the major components of the female pheromone. However, possible effects of α-pinene and that of other host volatiles on the matin...

Seahorses have long been part of the pantheon of imagination-inspiring creatures. The external appearance of this strange fish probably accounts for the widespread appeal of the seahorse. Reproduction in seahorses is even more unusual, as the male rather than the female, becomes pregnant. Recent research on seahorse mating behaviour reveals that male pregnancy in seahorses and their relatives h...

The evolution and maintenance of secondary sexual characteristics and behavior are heavily influenced by the variance in mating success among individuals in a population. The operational sex ratio (OSR) is often used as a predictor of the intensity of competition for mates, as it describes the relative number of males and females who are ready to mate. We investigate changes in aggression, cour...

Mating is one aspect of behaviour that has been much ignored in mosquito biology. Yet, the success of a transgenic release strategy depends on normal, competitive mating between introduced and wild individuals. An overview is presented of current knowledge of mating behaviour in Culicidae, including timing of mating, means of sperm transfer, refractory behaviour and multiple mating. Most lacuna...

OBJECTIVE To predict effectiveness of 3 interventional methods of population control for feral cat colonies. DESIGN Population model. SAMPLE Estimates of vital data for feral cats. PROCEDURES Data were gathered from the literature regarding the demography and mating behavior of feral cats. An individual-based stochastic simulation model was developed to evaluate the effectiveness of trap-...

Abstract We conducted field observations of physical competition for mates, in which a single male attempts to usurp a female from another male, in male Japanese beetles, Popillia japonica Newman (Coleoptera; Scarabaeidae). Physical contests for mates were relatively rare, but when they occurred the challenger male was able to successfully takeover females by dislodging the previously paired re...