As I noted back in February, Jindal was the plurality favorite in a reader survey of McCain running-mate options at National Review Online.
Before us was a wilderness town square, where elephants and buffalo came to check out mating options, dine and drink from a mineral-rich bog.
For each combination of one female and one male clonal population, two or three different male genotypes were independently offered as alternative mating options.
Results from the first experiment suggest both that males rarely initiate divorce, even when alternative mating options are available, and that the role of female-female competition is negligible.
The intensity of competition (equivalent to the availability of alternative mating options to females), was measured as the number of individuals introduced during the second infection divided by the number of individual of the same sex introduced on the first one.
Moreover, we witnessed one extra-pair copulation, suggesting that extra-pair mating options influence the trade-off between mate guarding and roaming.
Likewise, divorce might also be facilitated by a female-biased sex-ratio (although this is unlikely to occur under natural conditions) through female-female competition and/or males abandoning their current mate for a better mating option.
We are thus left with the possibility that male-male competition is the main cause of divorce, or with the possibility that female directly initiate divorce when they perceive a better mating option [11], [12], [19].
A male-biased sex ratio may promote male-male competition and, hence, "forced" divorce, i.e. displacement of a paired male by an unpaired rival [11], [12], [18], but also favour female choice of a better mating option [11], [12], [19].
We argue that this male behavior still offers advantages even if the preferred female flees: on the one hand, a pattern of last male sperm precedence was uncovered in guppies, which renders mate choice copying a profitable option for the eavesdropping (copying) male.
