Mating behavior and birth seasonality of black-and-white snub-nosed monkeys ( Rhinopithecus bieti ) at Mt. Lasha
2013
Copulation patterns are important to understanding male mating
strategies and stabilization strategies of social organizations in
primates. However, information on copulation patterns of Asian primates
is relatively rare. This study was undertaken to collect data on mating
behavior and birth seasonality of Black-and-white Snub-nosed monkeys (
Rhinopithecus bieti ) using all occurrence sampling and Focal
animal-scan sampling methods at Mt. Lasha, between January and
December, 2011. Our study focused on observing mating frequency and
birth rates. Snub-nosed monkeys mate year round, with two observable
peaks: one reproductive peak during the mating season, roughly from
August to October, and a second non-breeding peak during the birth
season. It is unclear what biological significance this
non-reproductive mating peak has. During our observation, we noted a
lower ratio of mount to ejaculation and rare ejaculatory copulations,
which indicated that every mating would not result in ejaculation. This
study corroborates the previous view that the Rhinopithecus
bieti’s copulatory pattern is likely multiple-mount ejaculation
(MME) or at the upper part of mating continuum of single-mount
ejaculation (SME) toward MME. More ejaculatory copulations initiated by
males than females indicate that MME is not only a mating strategy of
males, but that males can influence the position of their copulatory
pattern on the continuum between SME and MME. The mating frequencies
significantly correlated with the birth rates with a delay of 6 to 7
months. Monkeys gave birth within a strict seasonality with a birth
peak of March, which confirms the previous view. Infants were born with
a certain degree of synchronization, but different populations
displayed different modes of synchronizations.
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