Honest olfactory ornamentation in a female-dominant primate.

摘要: Sexual selection theory predicts that potential mates or competitors signal their quality to conspecifics. Whereas evidence of honest visual vocal signals in males abounds, signalling via scent by females is scarce. We previously showed marks male lemurs seasonally encode information about individual heterozygosity – a reliable predictor immunocompetence and survivorship. As female dominate males, compete over resources, produce sexually differentiated likely evolved direct selection, here we tested whether also advertise genetic olfactory cues. During the breeding season specifically, correlated negatively with diversity fatty acids (FAs) expressed labial secretions positively heavy FA esters. odour–gene relationships predictive health survivorship emerged during period critical mate choice competition, posit genital function as ornaments females.