Lek mating system and its impact on male annihilation technique

Abstract

Simulation models were presented which describe the matings inside a lek. The size of the lek was assumed to follow a poisson distribution, the dominance factor of each of the males was drawn from a gamma distribution, and the mating probability for each male was determined by its mating effectiveness raised to female mating factor divided by the sum of all the mating effectivenesses raised to this power. The mating probatility for each male and the actual matings were determined by Monte Carlo simulation. Based on the simulation data, the effects of female mating factor and size of the lek on the frequency of actual matings accomplished by the males inside the lek were discussed. In the case of male annihilation, the mean number of effective matings per male in the lek, calculated from the frequency of actual matings weighted by the effective mating ratio, was used to evaluate the efficiency of male annihilation method.