Scent marking is often assumed to be a secondary sexual trait that increases males’ mating and reproductive\udsuccess, although direct evidence for this hypothesis is lacking. We conducted a study with wildderived\udhouse mice, Mus musculus musculus, to test whether scent marking increases males’ reproductive\udsuccess when females can freely choose between two territorial males. We also experimentally\udmanipulated males’ competitive scent marking by exchanging scent-marked tiles between the neighbouring\udmales’ territories (intrusion treatment) or relocating males’ tiles within their own territory\ud(control). Experimental animals were tested twice and we examined whether individual males were\udconsistent in their marking. We found that males marked more in the intrusion treatment than controls\udand more at shared territorial borders than elsewhere. We found high day-to-day variation in most\udindividuals’ scent marking, and yet the sum of individuals’ scent marking was consistent over time and\udacross different social conditions. Genetic paternity analyses revealed that males’ scent marking significantly\udincreased their reproductive success in both the intrusion treatment and the controls. Surprisingly,\udhowever, female social preference was not positively correlated with male scent marking. These\udresults provide direct evidence that scent marking increases males’ reproductive success when females\udcan choose their mates, even though it did not increase females’ social preferences.\ud� 2013 The Association for the Study of Animal Behaviour. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
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