scholarly journals Pipefish male pregnancy: Why do females prefer large mates?

2021 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
2009 ◽  
Vol 14 (4) ◽  
pp. 25-30 ◽  
Author(s):  
Irina Aristarkhova
Keyword(s):  

Behaviour ◽  
2016 ◽  
Vol 153 (1) ◽  
pp. 91-106 ◽  
Author(s):  
M. Cunha ◽  
A. Berglund ◽  
T. Alves ◽  
N.M. Monteiro

Cannibalism provides energetic benefits but is also potentially costly, especially when directed towards kin. Since fitness costs increase with time and energy invested in offspring, cannibalism should be infrequent when parental investment is high. Thus, filial cannibalism in male syngnathids, a group known for the occurrence of male pregnancy, should be rare. Using the pipefish (Syngnathus abaster) we aimed to investigate whether cannibalism does occur in both sexes and how it is affected by reproductive and nutritional states. Although rare, we witnessed cannibalism both in the wild and in the laboratory. Unlike non-pregnant males and females, pregnant and post-partum males largely refrained from cannibalising juveniles. Reproducing males decreased their feeding activity, thus rendering cannibalism, towards kin or non-kin, less likely to occur. However, if not continuously fed, all pipefish adopted a cannibal strategy, revealing that sex and life history stages influenced the ratio between the benefits and costs of cannibalism.


2019 ◽  
Vol 9 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Anne Beemelmanns ◽  
Maude Poirier ◽  
Till Bayer ◽  
Sven Kuenzel ◽  
Olivia Roth
Keyword(s):  

1981 ◽  
Vol 115 (1) ◽  
pp. 133-134 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robert L. Munroe ◽  
Ruth H. Munroe

Author(s):  
Berit Åström

This article investigates mpreg slash fiction—same-sex relationships featuring male pregnancy—based on the television series Supernatural, looking at issues of gender and genre. It has been argued that slash writing is a highly subversive and resisting activity, appropriating someone else's characters and rewriting the romance script to suit different tastes than those prescribed by patriarchy. Yet fan fic texts are very diverse and it is difficult, if not impossible, to draw any general conclusions from them. The theme of male pregnancy has the potential to produce narratives that challenge our notions of gender, identity, sexual and social practices, as well as parenthood. Although the fan fiction I have analyzed all deals with these notions in various ways, the focus lies elsewhere. The authors of the texts focus more on exploring Sam and Dean as fathers and homemakers, on writing about family life, with all its traditional trappings. When the authors bring pregnancy into the equation, they draw on narrative and social conventions that follow this experience, resulting in conventional stories set in a very unconventional universe.


2015 ◽  
Vol 20 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mary Ingram-Waters

This article explores how an online community of female fans of Harry Potter creates and maintains scientific and medical knowledge of a novel reproductive technology, male pregnancy. In an effort to illuminate the mechanisms of fandom, I show how fandom participants collectively work to ensure the maintenance of standards for fan products and in doing so also selectively reinforce particular tropes about how male pregnancy is portrayed. Fans' validation of some male pregnancy variations over others results in a fascinating yet recognizable set of fictional reproductive technologies that both queer and accommodate normative gender and sexuality roles.


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