ArticlePloS one2014
Extra-pair mating and evolution of cooperative neighbourhoods.
Article in PloS one, 2014. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 13 papers.
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Who cites it
13 citing papers in PubMed.
- Environmental quality shapes the fitness payoffs of multiple paternity.BMC ecology and evolution · 2025Article
- Maternal Investment Is Positively Associated With the Presence of Extra-Pair Offspring in a Socially Monogamous Songbird.Ecology and evolution · 2025Article
- Reply to Jan T. Lifjeld et al.: Female agency and fitness benefits of mixed-paternity broods remain.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2022Article
- Extra-pair paternity explains cooperation in a bird species.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2022Article
- Kinship dynamics: patterns and consequences of changes in local relatedness.Proceedings. Biological sciences · 2021Review
- Heritability of the extra-pair mating behaviour of the pied flycatcher in Western Siberia.PeerJ · 2020Article
- Indirect fitness benefits through extra-pair mating are large for an inbred minority, but cannot explain widespread infidelity among red-winged fairy-wrens.Evolution; international journal of organic evolution · 2019Article
- Factors influencing within-group conflict over defence against conspecific outsiders seeking breeding positions.Proceedings. Biological sciences · 2018Article
- Male great tits assort by personality during the breeding season.Animal behaviour · 2017Article
- Cooperation is related to dispersal patterns in Sino-Tibetan populations.Nature communications · 2015Article
- Increased extra-pair paternity in broods of aging males and enhanced recruitment of extra-pair young in a migratory bird.Evolution; international journal of organic evolution · 2015Article
- Behavioural ecology: Love thy neighbour.Nature · 2014Article
- Extra-pair parentage and personality in a cooperatively breeding bird.Behavioral ecology and sociobiologyArticle
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No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
A striking but unexplained pattern in biology is the promiscuous mating behaviour in socially monogamous species. Although females commonly solicit extra-pair copulations, the adaptive reason has remained elusive. We use evolutionary modelling of breeding ecology to show that females benefit because extra-pair paternity incentivizes males to shift focus from a single brood towards the entire neighbourhood, as they are likely to have offspring there. Male-male cooperation towards public goods and dear enemy effects of reduced territorial aggression evolve from selfish interests, and lead to safer and more productive neighbourhoods. The mechanism provides adaptive explanations for the common empirical observations that females engage in extra-pair copulations, that neighbours dominate as extra-pair sires, and that extra-pair mating correlates with predation mortality and breeding density. The models predict cooperative behaviours at breeding sites where males cooperate more towards public goods than females. Where maternity certainty makes females care for offspring at home, paternity uncertainty and a potential for offspring in several broods make males invest in communal benefits and public goods. The models further predict that benefits of extra-pair mating affect whole nests or neighbourhoods, and that cuckolding males are often cuckolded themselves. Derived from ecological mechanisms, these new perspectives point towards the evolution of sociality in birds, with relevance also for mammals and primates including humans.
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