Why pairing up for life is hardly a good idea
All the romantic novels, love songs and soppy greetings cards, monogamy remains more
of an ideal than a reality
Josh Gabbatiss
For many of us, marriage is special. The idea of a lifelong bond between two people is accorded legal, spiritual and cultural significance throughout much of the world. Whether we are religious or secular, a permanent monogamous relationship can feel sacred.
So when we hear about animals that form lifelong bonds, our aww factor goes into overdrive: How adorable! Gosh, we could all learn a thing or two from those shingleback lizards. But for all the romantic novels, love songs and soppy greetings cards, monogamy remains more of an ideal than a reality. Even in seemingly monogamous human societies, infidelity is common, and the same is generally true of monogamous animals. There are a few that do remain faithful, but the underlying reasons are anything but romantic.
Understanding why monogamy sometimes works for animals, and why it so often fails, can tell us about the nature of our own relationships. So cast aside your romantic ideals, and enter a world of amorous parasitic worms, adulterous songbirds and thoroughly naughty monkeys. Each year shingleback lizards reunite as monogamous pairs.
In nature, reproduction is everything. All creatures are ultimately trying to pass on their genes to their offspring. Monogamy is just one of many strategies, and there are two inescapable pressures that drive animals to mate more freely.
Monogamy is only a sensible strategy under very specific circumstances. The first point is that genetic variation is good. A female who mates with several different males will have more genetically diverse offspring, boosting the chances that at least some of them will thrive.
Secondly, as the English geneticist Angus John Bateman pointed out, there is a fundamental difference between males and females when it comes to making sex cells. Put simply, sperm are cheaper to produce than eggs. This means a typical male animal has enough sperm at his disposal to fertilise countless females, whereas beyond a certain point females will not produce any more offspring by mating with extra males. Put these two points together, and both sexes have incentives to find multiple mates. As a result, monogamy is only a sensible strategy under very specific circumstances, many of which will seem eerily familiar. The first is simply proximity.
If the members of a species live great distances apart, they will tend to take a love the one youre with attitude. They pair up with the first mate they can find, and stick with them. Staying together for the kids can help ensure their progeny survive to adulthood. One animal that takes this to its logical conclusion is the intestinal parasite Schistosoma mansoni. Reviled for causing schistosomiasis in humans, these worms live very intimate lives: males and females spend the entirety of their adult lives locked in a tight embrace. Each male has a gynaecophoric canal in which the female nestles while she churns out hundreds of eggs into the hosts intestines.
The human digestive system is not the best place to pick up hot dates, so when a worm encounters a member of the opposite sex, it is quite willing to tie the knot for good. The other key reason animals opt for monogamy has to do with good parenting.
If a species inhabits an environment that is fraught with danger and lacking in resources, their offspring are at great risk of dying young. In such situations, staying together for the kids can help ensure their progeny survive to adulthood. For many species, reproduction consists of squirting out a few thousand eggs or sperm and hoping for the best.
This was demonstrated in 2010 by Kyle Summers and his colleagues at East Carolina University in Greenville, North Carolina, USA. They discovered the first known monogamous amphibian: the mimic poison frog.
The team was able to directly link this mating strategy to the fact that these frogs raise their tadpoles in tiny, nutrient-poor pools of water. Owing to their inhospitable nurseries, the tadpoles require the assistance of both parents to get enough food to reach adulthood. We were able to tie the evolution of monogamy and the evolution of biparental care to variation in a single ecological factor, and thats rare, says Summers.
But these monogamous animals are the exception. For many species, reproduction consists of squirting out a few thousand eggs or sperm and hoping for the best, so they could not be monogamous even if they wanted to. If we want to learn something from nature, maybe we should look to the masters of monogamy: birds.
An estimated 90 per cent of bird species are monogamous. At least, they are on paper. But bird love lives contain more drama than your average soap opera, with storylines involving jealous spouses, unfaithful partners and illegitimate children. 14-24 per cent of albatross chicks are fathered by a male who is not their mothers life partner.
There are two possible levels of monogamy. Social monogamy refers to a male and a female who are spatially close together, having sex, and cooperating in tasks like parenting. But it does not necessarily mean they are not sleeping around. Such exclusivity is called sexual monogamy and it is much rarer.
A cynic would say that many human relationships are social monogamy masquerading as sexual monogamy. In this respect, we have a lot in common with birds. For a long time, scientists thought the bonds observed between bird couples during the breeding season meant that sexual monogamy was a given. But this turned out to be nave. Genetic and behavioural studies have revealed a world of avian scandal featuring cheating buntings and cuckolded warblers. These misdemeanours are called, in delightfully euphemistic tones, extra-pair copulations. They can account for up to 75 per cent of the offspring in a population. Even birds known for their loyalty are prone to betrayal. By definition, mammalian parenting is dominated by females, because they suckle their young with milk Every other year, wandering albatrosses return from months at sea to rekindle their relationship with the same lifelong partner. But they are far from sexually monogamous. Genetic techniques suggest that 14-24 per cent of albatross chicks are fathered by a male who is not their mothers life partner.
With such a high rate of infidelity, you might wonder why the birds stay together at all. The answer is the same as for the mimic poison frogs: parental responsibility. Baby birds are helpless lumps of skin and fluff, and they need two doting parents to ensure that they are well fed. The albatrosses lifelong partnerships are exceptional. In most bird species partnerships do not last much longer than a single breeding season. But compared to the mammals, the group to which we belong, birds are paragons of monogamy. Even birds known for their loyalty, like these wandering albatross are prone to betrayal.
The reason for this is partly physiological. By definition, mammalian parenting is dominated by females, because they suckle their young with milk. This means that the division of labour seen in bird pairings simply cannot exist to the same degree.
Males will only accept monogamous pairings if they cannot dominate the females of their species. Nevertheless, around 3-5 per cent of mammal species practise social monogamy, ranging from bats to wolves. These marital mammals limit their mating for many different reasons. For example, beavers have to maintain their dams as well as caring for their offspring, so they benefit hugely from working together. However, the tiny dik-dik antelope does not share parental duties, but still pursues exclusive relationships. Needless to say, neither of these species is beyond a spot of extra-pair copulation.
In an ambitious study published in 2013, Tim Clutton-Brock and Dieter Lukas of the University of Cambridge in the UK analysed over 2,500 mammal species to find out why some of them have become monogamous. They concluded that males will only accept monogamous pairings if they cannot dominate the females of their species. Only one factor appeared to actually precede the evolution of pair-bonds: infanticide by males. If females are widely dispersed, as with dik-diks or indeed Schistosoma worms then males will make the evolutionary transition from free-spirited bachelors to doting husbands. BBC
