A female signal reflects MHC genotype in a social primate |
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Authors: | Elise Huchard Michel Raymond Julio Benavides Harry Marshall Leslie A Knapp Guy Cowlishaw |
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Institution: | 1.Institut des Sciences de l'Evolution,Université Montpellier 2, Place Eugène Bataillon,Montpellier,France;2.CNRS-UMR5554, Place Eugène Bataillon,Montpellier,France;3.Department of Behavioural Ecology and Sociobiology,Deutsches Primatenzentrum,G?ttingen,Germany;4.Institute of Zoology,Zoological Society of London,London,UK;5.Department of Biological Anthropology,University of Cambridge,Cambridge,UK |
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Abstract: | Background Males from many species are believed to advertise their genetic quality through striking ornaments that attract mates. Yet
the connections between signal expression, body condition and the genes associated with individual quality are rarely elucidated.
This is particularly problematic for the signals of females in species with conventional sex roles, whose evolutionary significance
has received little attention and is poorly understood. Here we explore these questions in the sexual swellings of female
primates, which are among the most conspicuous of mammalian sexual signals and highly variable in size, shape and colour.
We investigated the relationships between two components of sexual swellings (size and shape), body condition, and genes of
the Major Histocompatibility Complex (MHC) in a wild baboon population (Papio ursinus) where males prefer large swellings. |
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