Bellemain, E., Zedrosser, A., Manel, S., Taberlet, P., Waits, L.P., Swenson, J.E. 2006. The dilemma of female mate selection in the brown bear, a species with sexually selected infanticide. Proceedings of the Royal Society of London, Series B 273, 283-291

Because of differential investment in gametes between sexes, females tend to be the more selective sex. Based on this concept, we investigate mate selection in a large carnivore: the brown bear (Ursus arctos). We hypothesise that, in this species with sexually selected infanticide (SSI), females may be faced with a dilemma: either select a high-quality partner based on phenotypic criteria, as suggested by theories of mate choice, or rather mate with future potentially infanticidal males as a counter strategy to SSI. We evaluated which male characteristics were important in paternity assignment. Among males available in the vicinity of the females, the largest, most heterozygous and less imbred and also the geographically closest males were more often the fathers of the female’s next litter. We suggest that female brown bears may select the closest males as a counter-strategy to infanticide and exercise a post-copulatory cryptic choice, based on physical attributes, such as a large body size, reflecting male genetic quality. However, male-male competition either in the form of fighting before copulation or during the postcopulatory phase, in the form of sperm competition, cannot entirely be ruled out.

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