Do females use their sexual status to gain resource access? Investigating food-for-sex in wolves and dogs - PubMed (original) (raw)

. 2017 Jun;63(3):323-330.

doi: 10.1093/cz/zow111. Epub 2017 Jan 6.

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Do females use their sexual status to gain resource access? Investigating food-for-sex in wolves and dogs

Rachel Dale et al. Curr Zool. 2017 Jun.

Abstract

While food sharing among related individuals can be explained by kin selection, food sharing between unrelated individuals has been more of an evolutionary puzzle. The food-for-sex hypothesis provides an explanation for the occurrence of food sharing among nonkin. However, little is known about the socio-ecological factors that can promote such a commodity exchange. A species mating system is a factor potentially influencing food-for-sex patterns of behavior. Here, we compared wolves, which form pair-bonds, with dogs, which are typically promiscuous in free-ranging contexts, to investigate the effect of reproductive stages on the behavior around a food source in 2 different contexts. Furthermore, we considered the roles of both the males and the females in the potential food-for-sex exchange. Results indicate that in both species and for both sexes the breeding period promotes decreased aggression. Additionally, females were more persistent in their attempts to access the food and were able to monopolize the resource more when in heat as compared to outside the breeding period. Finally, in dogs, but not wolves, females spent more time in proximity to the male's bone and had a shorter latency to start eating it when in heat. Overall, this study demonstrates that the food-for-sex hypothesis plays a part in intersexual food sharing in canids, and highlights the role of females in the interaction. These effects were especially the case in dogs, suggesting a potential effect of mating system on food-for-sex responses.

Keywords: canid; food sharing; food-for-sex; tolerance..

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Figures

Figure 1

Figure 1

Subjects were more likely to show aggression out of heat than in heat in dyadic tests.

Figure 2

Figure 2

Females were more likely to beg (A) and show a tendency to wait more (B) when in heat than out of heat.

Figure 3

Figure 3

Female dogs showed a shorter latency to eat the bone when in heat than out of heat. This effect was not seen in wolf females.

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