ArticleScientific reports2018
Caring for infants is associated with increased reproductive success for male mountain gorillas.
Article in Scientific reports, 2018. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 17 papers.
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Who cites it
17 citing papers in PubMed.
- Meat Acquisition Skill and Male Reproductive Success in Guinea Baboons.American journal of biological anthropology · 2026Article
- Multiparous and primiparous mothers partially differ in how they allocate maternal behaviour in captive western lowland gorillas (Gorilla gorilla gorilla).Primates; journal of primatology · 2025Article
- Early-life paternal relationships predict adult female survival in wild baboons.Proceedings. Biological sciences · 2025Article
- Early-life paternal relationships predict adult female survival in wild baboons.bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2025Article
- And Baby Makes Three: Postpartum Changes in Male-Female Affiliative Interactions in White-Faced Capuchins.American journal of primatology · 2025Article
- Does kinship with the silverback matter? Intragroup social relationships of immature wild western lowland gorillas after social upheaval.Primates; journal of primatology · 2024Article
- Multiple mechanisms for inbreeding avoidance used simultaneously in a wild ape.Proceedings. Biological sciences · 2023Article
- Article
- Adaptive significance of affiliative behaviour differs between sexes in a wild reptile population.Proceedings. Biological sciences · 2023Article
- Infant adoptions in wild bonnet macaques (Macaca radiata).Primates; journal of primatology · 2022Article
- Male-male social bonding, coalitionary support and reproductive success in wild Guinea baboons.Proceedings. Biological sciences · 2022Article
- High levels of infant handling by adult males in Rwenzori Angolan colobus (Colobus angolensis ruwenzorii) compared to two closely related species, C. guereza and C. vellerosus.Primates; journal of primatology · 2021Article
- Article
- The evolution of paternal care: a role for microbes?Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences · 2020Article
- Variation in Adult Male-Juvenile Affiliative Behavior in Japanese Macaques (Macaca fuscata).Folia primatologica; international journal of primatology · 2020Article
- Testing adaptive hypotheses of alloparenting in Agta foragers.Nature human behaviour · 2019Article
- Morphological changes of telocytes in camel efferent ductules in response to seasonal variations during the reproductive cycle.Scientific reports · 2019Article
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Authors and funding
4 authors.
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No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Socioecological theory predicts that male parenting among mammals should be rare due to the large payoffs of prioritizing mating effort over parenting. Although these predictions are generally met, in some promiscuous primate species males overcome this by identifying their offspring, and providing benefits such as protection and resource access. Mountain gorillas, which often organize into multi-male groups, are an intriguing exception. Males frequently affiliate with infants despite not discriminating their own from other males' offspring, raising questions about the function of this behavior. Here we demonstrate that, independent of multiple controls for rank, age, and siring opportunities, male gorillas who affiliated more with all infants, not only their own, sired more offspring than males who affiliated less with young. Predictive margins indicate males in the top affiliation tertile can expect to sire approximately five times more infants than males in the bottom tertile, across the course of their reproductive careers. These findings establish a link between males' fitness and their associations with infants in the absence of kin discrimination or high paternity certainty, and suggest a strategy by which selection could generate more involved male parenting among non-monogamous species.
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