DiscussWorldIssues - Socio-Economic Religion and Political Uncensored Debate - View Single Post - How is the balance between boys and girls maintained?

**AlabamaBoyz** · 12-18-2011, 12:54 AM

The OP is fairly inane, but it got me thinking: in a normally polygynous animal "society," such as lions, would the sex ratio be skewed in favor of females, since a few males tend to hog a relatively large number of females? I haven't found much, except this first page of something from JSTOR: http://www.jstor.org/pss/2461708 . I can't view the rest, since I'm not accessing it via a university, etc.

Anyway, it says that male lions tend to form coalitions to take over a pride, and larger coalitions, unsurprisingly, are more successful at gaining and maintaining control of a pride. And the sex ratio actually skews toward the male "when those males enhance each other's expected chances of reproductive success." What that specifically refers to, I don't know. Anyway, is there a biologist/ecologist in here who can tell me if lions, or other polygynous animals, normally bear more female than male young?

12-18-2011, 12:54 AM	#26
AlabamaBoyz Join Date Oct 2005 Posts 622 Senior Member	The OP is fairly inane, but it got me thinking: in a normally polygynous animal "society," such as lions, would the sex ratio be skewed in favor of females, since a few males tend to hog a relatively large number of females? I haven't found much, except this first page of something from JSTOR: http://www.jstor.org/pss/2461708 . I can't view the rest, since I'm not accessing it via a university, etc. Anyway, it says that male lions tend to form coalitions to take over a pride, and larger coalitions, unsurprisingly, are more successful at gaining and maintaining control of a pride. And the sex ratio actually skews toward the male "when those males enhance each other's expected chances of reproductive success." What that specifically refers to, I don't know. Anyway, is there a biologist/ecologist in here who can tell me if lions, or other polygynous animals, normally bear more female than male young?
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