Animal breeding systems

The study of breeding systems explores relationships between mating behaviour and parental care. Recent findings have shown that in many birds, fishes, anurans, and insects, females play a more active role than previously thought, by engaging in mate choice, mating with more than one male, and selecting genetic partners separately from social partners. Theoretical advances have improved our understanding of the effect of parental care on sex differences in mating behaviour, though less attention has been devoted to feedback in the opposite direction. The original emphasis on the role of ecology in determining breeding systems has been overshadowed by studies of individual interactions, but modern comparative techniques may provide a new fusion between ecology, life histories, and reproductive behaviour.