Testosterone positively associated with both male mating effort and paternal behavior in savanna baboons (Papio cynocephalus)

Testosterone (T) is often positively associated with male sexual behavior and negatively associated with paternal care. These associations have primarily been demonstrated in species where investment in paternal care begins well after mating activity is complete, when offspring are hatched or born. Different patterns may emerge in studies of species where investment in mating and paternal care overlap temporally, for instance in non-seasonal breeders in which males mate with multiple females sequentially and may simultaneously have multiple offspring of different ages. In a 9-year data set on levels of T in male baboons, fecal concentrations of T (fT) were positively associated with both mate guarding (“consortship”) — a measure of current reproductive activity — and with the number of immature offspring a male had in his social group — a measure of past reproductive activity and an indicator of likely paternal behavior. To further examine the relationship between T and potential patern...