Does multiple paternity explain phenotypic variation among offspring in wild boar?

Marlène Gamelon, Thibault Gayet, Eric Baubet, Sébastien Devillard, Ludovic Say, Serge Brandt, Christophe Pélabon and Bernt-Erik Sæther

Behavioral Ecology, 2018, vol. 29, issue 4, 904-909

Abstract: Mating with different males may allow females to increase offspring diversity within a litter when facing variable environments. We show that heavy wild boar females produce large litters containing variable fetus mass with several fathers. However, fathers have little effect on fetus mass and a within-litter increase in the number of fathers does not result in higher within-litter mass variation. The number of fathers and their identities thus do not explain differences in offspring mass.

Keywords: fetus mass; paternal identity; phenotypic polymorphism; sibling rivalry (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2018
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