Are dispersal and inbreeding avoidance related?

Sex differences in dispersal and inter-group transfer by birds and mammals are often considered to be evolved responses to the phenomenon of inbreeding depression. This belief is derived from ‘natural selection logic’, which holds that (1) because inbreeding depression is demonstrably costly, selection must have acted to minimize its occurrence, and (2) as sex differences in dispersal often appear to be the only thing preventing inbreeding, these sex differences must be the expected adaptations for avoiding inbreeding depression. However, although the sex differences in median dispersal distance observed among many small mammals and birds may reduce average levels of inbreeding within a population, they nevertheless leave the majority of individuals ‘at risk’ for inbreeding; such differences can be responses to inbreeding depression only in a group selection model. Furthermore, natal dispersal by both sexes occurs in many group-living species. In these species, emigration by individuals of one sex cannot easily be attributed to avoiding inbreeding because opposite-sex relatives also emigrate. Though most authors acknowledge that sexual dispersal patterns may be epiphenomenal consequences of other factors (e.g. intrasexual aggression), this point is rarely considered further. In this paper we critically review several frequently cited examples of differential dispersal, and conclude that ‘other factors’, such as intrasexual competition and territory choice, explain these observations more completely and consistently than does the inbreeding avoidance hypothesis. Observed dispersal patterns simply reflect sex differences in the balance between the advantages of philopatry and the costs of intrasexual competition.