Female need for paternal care shapes variation in extra-pair paternity in a cooperative breeder University of Antwerp Ghent University
Socially monogamous females regularly mate with males outside the pair bond. The prevailing explanation for this behavior is that females gain genetic benefits resulting from increased fitness of extra-pair offspring. Furthermore, because of the risk of reduced paternal care in response to cuckoldry, females are expected to seek extra-pair copulations when they can rear offspring with little help from their social partner ("constrained female" ...