Female fowl avoid male harassment in the morning

In research appearing in the July issue of The American Naturalist, researchers at the University of Oxford found that, as expected, male fowl are more sexually active in the evening. Female fowl on the other hand, change their daily pattern of sexual activity in response to the sex ratio of a population. Females solicit sex in the evening in populations that are heavily female-biased, where sexual harassment by males is minimal, and females have more control of copulation. However, in male-biased populations, male sexual harassment of females is intense, especially in the evening. Here, females solicit sex early in the morning and avoid males in the evening. This behavioral plasticity in sexual behavior may enable females to reduce the cost of mating while maintaining some control over paternity.-University of Chicago Press Journals