The two-way interaction between mate body size and mate mating status was also included in the linear models as a fixed effect.
In contrast, the other two factors associated with the mates (mate body size and mate sperm transfer number) did not affect the number of sperm transferred to the mate.
Hybrid males mated to KIL females had intermediate mating plug size that did not differ significantly from other treatment groups (P > 0.051 in all cases).
"Paternity analysis in wild savanna elephants has shown that, when competing for mates, body size matters: large males produce more offspring than small males," explained Georgiadis.
The dimorphism can be attributed to and affected by different factors, including mating system, size, habitat and diet.
One possibility is that walking upright on two feet has made the penis more conspicuous -- and females may be able to choose mates with size in mind.
For instance, it has already been used to explore the relationship between mating group size and sex allocation [ 43].
Consanguineous mating, population size reduction, and selection result in long homozygous regions along the genome [ 15, 16].
Although phenotypic diversity and offspring behavior were not measured, we found no effect of multiple mating on size at birth, growth rate, time to sexual maturity, or survival.
Fitness can be used to describe a variety of characteristics including, but not limited to, fecundity, emergence time, mating success, size, longevity, or susceptibility to disease.
