Sex differentiation in postnatal growth rate: a test in a wild boar population

✍ Scribed by J. -M. Gaillard; D. Pontier; S. Brandt; J.-M. Jullien; D. Allainé

• Publisher: Springer-Verlag
• Year: 1992
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 484 KB
• Volume: 90
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 0029-8549
• DOI: 10.1007/bf00317173

✦ Synopsis

In wild boar individual growth rate is linear between 0.5 and 6 months after birth, based on successive body weight measurements. Contrary to expectation for a dimorphic and polygynous mammal like wild boar, no sexual dimorphism in growth rate could be detected between 0.5 and 6 months. We argue that high total maternal invesment in offspring due to large litter size and/or strong selection for early reproduction in this population with a short generation time could explain this absence of early differentiation in postnatal growth rate according to offspring sex.