To maximize individual fitness, males and females of the same species often engage into strategies that are at loggerheads. Sexually selected infanticide is a male strategy which is costly for females, because killing of dependent young by males cause considerable loss to maternal investment. African lions are social, with a group/pride comprising of females, their cubs and a coalition of adult males. Coalition males maintain territorial exclusivity over a group of females and sire all cubs born to a pride during their tenures. Infanticide is prevalent among lions where incoming new males kill cubs during a ‘takeover’, after ousting the resident males. Asiatic lions, living as a single relic population in India exhibit a contrasting social structure with males and females staying separately in same-sex groups (males in coalitions and females with their cubs as prides). Interactions between the two sexes are restricted primarily to mating. In here, male ranges encompass multiple female groups, and each female-pride is encompassed by the territories of multiple rival male coalitions. We investigate the consequences of such a social organisation on the mating strategy of Asiatic lions through behavioural observations (aided through GPS telemetry and ground tracking from 2012 to 2019) on 21 adult males from 11 coalitions and 49 adult females from nine female-prides.
Results/Conclusions
A social network analysis based on mating events (n=134) between study coalitions and prides revealed that lionesses are promiscuous, females readily mating with multiple rival coalitions. However, promiscuity was primarily shown by experienced lionesses who had litters before. Observations on 81 interactions between adult males and cubs show that female promiscuity has considerably buffered cub infanticide by confusing paternity amongst males, with males belonging to rival coalitions tolerating the same litter of cubs when they were 'familiar' to the mothers. However, males new to an area who had no prior exposure to lionesses of that area would readily kill any accompanying cubs. Such a novel mating strategy not only safeguards cub survival but have likely genetically invigorated a highly inbred population. By comparing and contrasting similar studies done in E Africa, we show that this mating strategy in Asiatic lions might have evolved owing to socio-spatial segregation between the sexes caused by smaller modal prey in the Asiatic system. Our results thus highlight resource mediated behavioural plasticity amongst territorial species inhabiting diverse eco-regions.