Female and male mammals have different behavioral strategies for maximizing their
reproductive success. Pregnancy and lactation obligate female mammals to provide greater
parental investment than males; thus, females compete with each other for food and space to
rear their offspring, while male mammals compete with each other for female mates.
Therefore, natural selection should favor any behavior among females that increases their
access to food and space to rear successful offspring and any behavior among males that
increases their access to females. In two enclosure experiments, the gray-tailed vole,
Microtus canicaudus, was used as a model species to study (1) the relative influence of male
competition versus access to females on space use by males and (2) facultative sex-ratio
adjustment at the population level in response to low and high population densities, skewed
adult sex ratios, and season.
Home-range sizes of male voles did not appear to expand beyond an overlap with
about five members of either sex. Intrasexual competition with 3-4 males and/or overlap
with five females appear to set the upper limits to home-range size. Space use by males is
influenced by intrasexual competition and by access to females with an upper limit of overlap
with either sex. Additionally, facultative sex-ratio adjustment in response to changing
population densities and skewing adult sex ratios did not occur, but a seasonal effect was
detected with significantly more males produced in autumn than in spring. Under the
conditions of this experimental study, I was not able to measure sex ratios of individual
litters, but if any sex-ratio adjustment occurred in response to densities and adult sex ratios, it
was not detectable at the population level. / Graduation date: 1999
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:ORGSU/oai:ir.library.oregonstate.edu:1957/33372 |
| Date | 12 October 1998 |
| Creators | Bond, Monica L. |
| Contributors | Wolff, Jerry O. |
| Source Sets | Oregon State University |
| Language | en_US |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Thesis/Dissertation |
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