RT Journal Article
SR Electronic
T1 Post-copulatory behavior of olive baboons (<em>Papio anubis</em>) infected by <em>Treponema pallidum</em>
JF bioRxiv
FD Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory
SP 2020.02.23.961326
DO 10.1101/2020.02.23.961326
A1 Filipa M. D. Paciência
A1 Idrissa S. Chuma
A1 Iddi F. Lipende
A1 Sascha Knauf
A1 Dietmar Zinner
YR 2020
UL http://biorxiv.org/content/early/2020/02/25/2020.02.23.961326.abstract
AB In nonhuman primates pathogens are known to exert a profound and pervasive cost on various aspects of their sociality and reproduction. In olive baboons (Papio anubis) at Lake Manyara National Park, genital skin ulcers caused by Treponema pallidum subsp. pertenue lead to mating avoidance in females and altered mating patterns at a pre-copulatory and copulatory level. Beyond this level, sexual behavior comprises also post-copulatory interactions among the sexual partners. To investigate whether the presence of genital skin ulcers has an impact at the post-copulatory level, we analyzed 517 copulation events of 32 cycling females and 29 males. The occurrence of post-copulatory behaviors (i.e., copulation calls, darting [female rapid withdraw from the male] and post-copulatory grooming) was not altered by the presence of genital skin ulcerations. Similarly to other baboon populations, females of our group were more likely to utter copulation calls after ejaculatory copulation. The likelihood of darting was higher after ejaculatory copulations and with the presence of copulation calls. Post-copulatory grooming was rarely observed but when it occurred, males groomed females for longer periods when females uttered copulation calls during, or preceding mating. Our results indicate that despite the presence of conspicuous genital skin ulcers, the post-copulatory behavior was not affected by the genital health status of the dyad. This suggests that infection cues play a major role before and during mating but do not affect post-copulatory behavior.