Male investment under changing conditions among chacma baboons at Suikerbosrand

Abstract

Male investment in infant baboons was measured by frequency of carrying from 1978 through 1985. A series of hypotheses was generated and tested with the carrying data, based on the assumptions that: male baboons have some capacity to estimate likelihood of paternity; where paternity probability is greater, males will invest more, where potential benefits to males or infants are higher, males will invest more. Carrying was affected by probability of paternity, availability of estrous females, season of conception and season of carrying, infant age, subtrooping, and predation risk. Infants were carried by probable fathers, siblings, mothers' siblings, and unrelated “suitors.” Male investment increased female reproductive fitness: carried infants were more likely to survive, and mothers of carried infants had shorter interbirth intervals. Males appeared to estimate paternity both by observed copulations by other males and by the likelihood that copulations could have occurred without being observed. Male care of infant baboons may also be affected by female choice among males, the distribution of probable infants in time, male tenure at alpha rank, the number of males per troop, the probability of infanticide, and energy demands. Subtrooping seems to be historically crucial, by initially creating a situation in which some males have high paternity certainty.