Estrous asynchrony causes low birth rates in wild female chimpanzees

Estrous cycle asynchrony likely functions to elevate individual females' sexual attractiveness during female mate choice. Female chimpanzees show physiological estrus as anogenital swelling. Copulations are concentrated during the period of maximal tumescence, which is called the estrous period. A group of female chimpanzees in Mahale Mountains National Park, Tanzania, was shown to display asynchrony in both maximal tumescence and periovulatory periods. We tested the hypothesis that females establish asynchronous maximal tumescence or periovulatory periods with respect to other females to increase copulation frequency and birth opportunities (Hypothesis 1). We analyzed differences in birth rates between four asynchronous years and five nonasynchronous years. Counter to Hypothesis 1, females in periovulatory periods during asynchronous years showed significantly lower birth rates than those in nonasynchronous years. In addition, periovulatory females copulated more frequently on days on which no other female in a periovulatory period was present. These results suggest that birth rates tend to decrease when females experience nonoverlapping ovulation cycles, although copulation frequency is high. Such a decrease in the birth rate may have resulted from the cost associated with multiple copulations. We tested two other hypotheses: paternity confusion (Hypothesis 2) and sperm competition (Hypothesis 3). Both of these hypotheses were partially supported. The highest‐ranking male most effectively monopolized access to receptive females when relatively few other males and receptive females from the party (or subgroup) were present. The viability of Hypotheses 2 and 3 requires that dominant males are able to hinder a female from mating with other males. Given that the male‐biased operational sex ratio created by female asynchrony is likely to reduce the efficiency of mate guarding by dominant males, an asynchronous female may gain a fitness benefit by increasing the probability of mating with at least one male who produces superior sperm. Am. J. Primatol. 73:180–188, 2011. © 2010 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.