Why Do Female Elephant Seals Prefer To Mate With O

Why Do Fe anthropoid Elephant Seals Prefer To Mate With One masculine? Biology         It is known that elephant seals have a large conjure up dimorphism in size among all mammals. They have a mingled life style, consisting of an aquatic phase and a farming of the realm phase (breeding and molting). until now, due to their strong aquatic adaptation, their terrestrial mobility is greatly reduced. They inseminate during their aquatic phase and fast during their cut back phase. While submerge in their aquatic phase, the elephant seals do a lot of deeply sea diving in fix to obtain comme il faut food for their yrly knock down cycle. The seals land phase is still of about three month in which they come to land to give birth and lucifer before going hold up to their aquatic phase.

Male dominance.

Normally appearing on land before their fe phallic counterparts, the of import masculine elephant seals use this compass point to keep back their dominance on the set down. land.

Before the womanlys arrive on land the male normally appear on land up to three months before so that they rump decl atomic number 18 their dominance. According to Daly and Wilson in their book, Sex, Evolution and Behavior, the male elephant seals initial business concern is the establishment of dominance in relationship among themselves. (Daly and Wilson 64). The more elevate male seals lay claim to the prime real estate on the beach followed by the younger bulls. Thus epoch and experience is the pivot around which dominance turns.

Secondly their labored behavior and interactions with other governing males called alpha males. Alpha males atomic number 18 those seals at the top of the seal hierarchy, which means that they leave behind delay their own seraglio. Males achieve their dominance sometimes by contest with other alpha males. Their excellent performance in competitor between a dominant or more dominant male (due to senesce) seems to be a fundamental requirement for higher(prenominal) breeding succeeder. In Sexual Selection by Malte Andersson, the generator states that little than one third of the males resident on the beach copulate during a breeding season, and most couple are done by a few males; the dominant male.

        However a males dominance is constantly being tested and cancelled-and-on(a) by threats and challenges from other alpha males. The males also loose a lot of energy during this time which might cause the male his life immediately after his most successful year on the beach, presumably because of the degenerative effects of his incessant get by to maintain higher rank, which has huge payoffs in reproductive success (Daly and Wilson 64). The males however increase their chances of mating by increasing the charge per unit at which they court females. More attempted mating unremarkably means more actual mating.

Mating System.

The hunt downency for elephant seals to radical upon arrival on land party favors the evolution of a harem. In this society, one or two alpha males have give over the females of that group/harem.          They seem to have a polypynous mating musical arrangement and it is known that where males are larger than females a polygyny system will prevail. Most females tend join harems as non to get provoke for mating by other aspirant males.

Discussion.

        Even though evidence indicates that females can actively conduct their cooperators, the question of why females elephant seals prefer to cooperator with one male at random, remains largely unresolved.          In some cases, it seems that the females elephant seals favor mating with a larger male simply because he is easy to locate. Reducing the amount of time they take to discern a mate may reduce a there risk of being harassed or even killed. For more mammals, natural selection appears to favor females who choose mates that stick out them with some direct benefit that will increase their fecundity, their extract or the survival of their upshot. Such benefits might include food, a safe territory or even the prospect of less harassment. It also appears that the females are harassed mainly because there is a shortage of mating for the rest of the males available, which leads to them wanting to mate with the females at any risk or forced copulation.

However, in my view the only interest females elephant seals have in a mate is the fact that they provide them with some protection that they get to mate before returning to their aquatic phase of their yearly cycle. As a result, the female does not get to choose who hey mate with, basically they are overpowered by the stronger males.

Since the male elephant seals provide no obvious resources, such as food or affection, females may choose to mate with the males that appear to have the best genes. Females tend to prefer to mate with males having higher courtship rates or a higher rank.

         It also seems to be a struggle between sexual selection, the biggest, meanest, elephant seal is trying to drive off all the other male elephant seals and keep a harem to himself. He can then pass on his alpha genes on to his offsprings. And the females seems to go for the stronger male so that the dominant genes will be past on. The females would not go for a weaker male because they will not be able to provide credentials for them. Basically the weaker male would give up on the female when attacked by a stronger male and the females would always be harassed or even killed.

Conclusion.

With all these evidence I can hypothesis that this goes back to Darwins survival of the fittest and the fact that the female elephant seals gustatory modality is genetically determined. They appear to want the males with the most dominant genes, and these are the males that have the higher dominance among all the males. This is so because the genic DNA will be pasted on and their offspring will acquire the strong genes so that when they become of age they will most likely be the dominant males.

        I can also hypothesis that not being choosey and also accepting mate from a secondary or lower dominant male appears to be the females tactic in reducing harassment.

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