No evidence for adaptive sex ratio variation in the cooperatively breeding meerkat, Suricata suricatta

Abstract

Where a maternal trait influences the fitness of sons or daughters, mothers would be expected to bias the sex ratio towards the sex whose fitness they are more able to increment. In many polygynous species, maternal characteristics affect the fitness of sons more than that of daughters, but, in meerkats, variance in female reproductive success exceeds variance in male reproductive success and maternal rank affects the success of daughters more than sons. Dominant females would therefore be expected to produce an excess of daughters, a reversal of the hypothesis’ usual predictions. In a long-term data set, despite a strong effect of maternal rank on daughters’ success, we found no indication that dominant females produce female-biased litters. Offspring sex ratios did not deviate significantly from equality, and were also unaffected by maternal mass, age or number of previous litters produced in the same season. We suggest that potential advantages to both mother and offspring of producing and developing in mixed litters may result in the adaptive maintenance of an equal offspring sex ratio.