In animal species with high male mating effort, males often find themselves in a dilemma: by increasing their mating effort, the gain from each copulation increases but simultaneously reduces available resources and, thus, the opportunity for future copulations. Therefore, we expect males to spend less reproductive resources on matings that provide low reproductive potential, thereby saving res...

In the majority of socially monogamous bird species, females solicit or accept copulations from males other than their partner. Females may gain direct benefits from extrapair males, such as greater access to resources, or indirect genetic benefits that will influence the future success of their offspring. However, one group of birds appears to be the exception to this general rule; in the wild...

Dopamine (DA) is released in several brain areas, including the nucleus accumbens (NAcc), before and during copulation in male rats. DA agonists administered into this area facilitate, and DA antagonists inhibit, numerous motivated behaviors, including male sexual behavior. Serotonin (5-HT) is generally inhibitory to male sexual behavior. We reported previously that 5-HT is released in the ante...

Our understanding of how male seminal fluid proteins (SFPs) influence the outcome of copulation in a wide range of insect taxa has been fueled primarily by studies of Drosophila (1). SFPs are known to localize, after copulation, to specific regions of the female reproductive tract and nervous system. Manipulative studies revealed that these proteins control a number of postcopulatory processes,...

Both male and female rats produce 50 kHz ultrasonic vocalizations (USVs) in the presence of a sexual partner and during copulation. Previous studies showed that USVs have no incentive value for rats. In this study, we evaluated the role of USVs in behavior during copulation. Three groups of rats were used: sham males paired with sham females, devocalized females paired with sham males, and sham...

Mate selection is critical to ensuring the survival of a species. In the fruit fly, Drosophila melanogaster, genetic and anatomical studies have focused on mate recognition and courtship initiation for decades. This model system has proven to be highly amenable for the study of neural systems controlling the decision making process. However, much less is known about how courtship quality is reg...

The study was conducted to explore various aspects of reproduction in camels viz. Effect of breed on fertility, effect of repeat services during same estrous period on pregnancy rate, effect of copulation time on fertility in female dromedary camels, early versus late onset of sexual libido in males, male fertility and investigations into mating ability, semen donation efficiency in Artificial ...

In this study, the authors investigated the hypothesis that women's sexual orientation and sexual responses in the laboratory correlate less highly than do men's because women respond primarily to the sexual activities performed by actors, whereas men respond primarily to the gender of the actors. The participants were 20 homosexual women, 27 heterosexual women, 17 homosexual men, and 27 hetero...

Life history parameters and reproductive behaviors of the harlequin bug, Murgantia histrionicaHahn (Heteroptera: Pentatomidae), were determined. Total developmental time from egg to adultwas 48d.After a sexualmaturationperiodof 7d, both sexesmated repeatedly,with females layingmultiple eggmasses of 12 eggs at intervals of 3 d. Adult females lived an average of 41 d,whereas adult males lived an ...

The effects of the interaction between the operational sex ratio (OSR) and a resource (i.e. oviposition site) on mating dynamics have rarely been considered. We examined the effect of the resource presence and its interaction, with the effect of OSR on copulation duration in Rhagoletis juglandis, a tephritid fly species characterized by a resource-defence mating system in which males defend ter...