Mating System In The Golden Snub-nosed Monkeys

Golden snub-nosed monkey(Rhinopithecus roxellana)is a rare and endangered species in China,and is the most northerly langur in the world.They live in the multilevel society contained of two basic bands,breeding band and all-male band,and the breeding band formed by several polygamic units(one male units,OMUs).Based on a short time period data,we find the Qinling golden snub-nosed monkey has extra-unit mating behavior,and the mating system is polygamy.But we are lack of evidence from long time research.Thus,the pattern of the mating system in golden snub-nosed monkeys is still uncertain.This research use genetic samples from ten years,we combined the behavioral data and genetic data to discuss the mating system of golden snub-nosed monkeys,and its reproductive strategy.We use a herd of wild R.roxellana in Qinling Mountains as our subject,collate the data and samples from 2004-2014.Ultimately,we have 390 genetic samples,and 361 of them were successfully extracted DNA,including 42 OMU males?193 adult females,and 126 offspring.We use Cervus 3.0 software to analyze the individual identification and parentage.According to the results,all the resident males of OMUs have offspring given birth by other OMUs' females,57% of the offspring was given birth by the OMUs' females,and 7% paternity may from the AMU.In this paper,we argue that when resident males cannot monopolize the females in their OMUs,they choose to cooperate with others to defense the reproductive resource from AMU,and protect the advantage of breeding band.