Does male mate choice select for female coloration in a promiscuous primate species?

Abstract

The traditional view of sex roles and sexual selection emphasizes the evolution of male ornaments as a result of female mate choice and male–male competition. Female ornaments are now receiving more attention, although their roles in mating decisions are still less well understood, especially considering cases in which colourful ornaments are expressed by both sexes. In this study, we analysed whether female skin coloration (luminance and redness of the face and hindquarters) influenced male mate choice and sexual behaviours in relation to intracycle (cycle phase), intercycle (number of consecutive cycles, conceptive nature of the cycle) and interindividual (age, social rank, weight and parity) variation in a captive social group of Japanese macaques, Macaca fuscata . Males did not preferentially choose darker/redder females. Moreover, males did not appear to use female skin coloration to apportion their mating efforts on the fertile phase of the menstrual cycle or during cycles that led to conception, or to discriminate between females. Collectively, our results suggest that female skin coloration may not have been sexually selected in this species and that males mated regardless of such variation across females. To our knowledge, our study is among the few to report a lack of male choice for female coloration in a species where both sexes display ornamentation. Our findings provide novel insights on the role and evolution of female coloration in sexual signalling and mating decisions. • Nonsex-specific colourful traits can potentially influence mate choice. • In most primate species, it is unclear if males attend to colourful female traits. • We tested the effect of female coloration on male mate choice in Japanese macaques. • Males did not discriminate between/within females or cycles based on coloration. • Female coloration is unlikely to be a sexually selected trait in Japanese macaques.