Women could improve the quality of their babies by mating with multiple partners while fertile, researchers say.
Thus, by mating with multiple males, females may be able to 'trade up' to a higher quality, or a more compatible male if she encounters one while still ensuring that her eggs could be fertilised in the meantime [10].
Unlike males, females are not expected to increase their reproductive success by mating with multiple individuals (Bateman 1948; Trivers 1972).
Females can reduce infanticide by their mating behavior through polyandry, by mating with multiple partners during a single reproductive event (Hrdy 1979).
However, females can improve their reproductive success by mating with multiple males, leading to increased offspring viability [ 5], despite the costs of mating [ 6],[ 7].
Indirect benefits, on the other hand, are next generation benefits that are associated with post copulatory sexual selection mechanisms that are promoted by mating with multiple, genetically variable, males (i.e., sperm competition and cryptic choice) [ 8, 10, 11].
obs)., 2) females have an opportunity to visit and compare neighboring males, as in our choice experiment, and 3) females choose their mates, which can include the choice of mating with multiple males as evidenced by multiple paternity in the wild [ 29, 41].
Most mammals have a mating system characterised by either polygyny (successful males mating with several females and females with only one male) or polygynandry (members of both sexes mating with multiple partners) (Wittenberger & Tilson 1980; Clutton-Brock 1989).
F1 male rats were maintained to generate F2 offspring by mating with untreated female rats.
