This dataset contains over 12k observations of male-female baboon pairs from a population of baboons that has recently seen genetic admixture from a different (but closely-related) taxon. The data contains genetic and social information for the male and female baboons, whether they mated, and whether the mating resulted in conception of offspring. ## Acknowledgements The original journal article that this data was collected for: Tung J, Charpentier MJE, Mukherjee S, Altmann J, Alberts SC (2012) Genetic effects on mating success and partner choice in a social mammal. The American Naturalist 180(1): 113-129. [http://dx.doi.org/10.1086/665993](http://dx.doi.org/10.1086/665993) The Data Dryad page that this data was downloaded from: Tung J, Charpentier MJE, [Mukherjee S](https://datadryad.org/discover?query=0000-0002-6715-3920&submit=Go), Altmann J, Alberts SC (2012) Data from: Genetic effects on mating success and partner choice in a social mammal. Dryad Digital Repository. [http://dx.doi.org/10.5061/dryad.4r9h61v8](http://dx.doi.org/10.5061/dryad.4r9h61v8) Abstract (from the original paper) Mating behavior has profound consequences for two phenomena—individual reproductive success and the maintenance of species boundaries—that contribute to evolutionary processes. Studies of mating behavior in relation to individual reproductive success are common in many species, but studies of mating behavior in relation to genetic variation and species boundaries are less commonly conducted in socially complex species. Here we leveraged extensive observations of a wild yellow baboon (Papio cynocephalus) population that has experienced recent gene flow from a close sister taxon, the anubis baboon (Papio anubis), to examine how admixture-related genetic background affects mating behavior. We identified novel effects of genetic background on mating patterns, including an advantage accruing to anubis-like males and assortative mating among both yellow-like and anubis-like pairs. These genetic effects acted alongside social dominance rank, inbreeding avoidance, and age to produce highly nonrandom mating patterns. Our results suggest that this population may be undergoing admixture-related evolutionary change, driven in part by nonrandom mating. However, the strength of the genetic effect is mediated by behavioral plasticity and social interactions, emphasizing the strong influence of social context on mating behavior in socially complex species. ## The Data This dataset contains over 12,000 observations of the following variables: - **female_id**: three letter "short name" ID for the female in a potentially consorting pair; each female has a unique ID - **male_id**: three letter "short name" ID for the male in a potentially consorting pair; each male has a unique ID - **cycle_id**: a unique number assigned to each female-estrus cycle combination - **consort**: whether the female-male pair consorted (1) or not (0), given the opportunity to do so - **conceptive**: whether the estrus cycle resulted in a conception (1) or not (0) - **female_hybridscore**: an estimate of the proportion of the female's genome that represents anubis baboon ancestry; for details of the estimation procedure, see Materials and Methods and Tung et al (2008) - **male_hybridscore**: an estimate of the proportion of the male's genome that represents anubis baboon ancestry; for details of the estimation procedure, see Materials and Methods and Tung et al (2008) - **female_gendiv**: an estimate of the female's genetic diversity; for details of the estimation procedure, see Materials and Methods - **male_gendiv**: an estimate of the male's genetic diversity; for details of the estimation procedure, see Materials and Methods - **gen_distance**: an estimate of the genetic distance (Queller-Goodnight r) between the male and female of a potentially consorting pair - **female_age**: the age of the female in a potentially consorting pair - **male_rank**: the ordinal rank of the male in a potentially consorting pair - **female_rank**: the ordinal rank of the female in a potentially consorting pair - **males_present**: the number of adult males present in the group of the potentially consorting pair - **females_present**: the number of adult females present in the group of the potentially consorting pair - **male_rank_transform**: ordinal male rank transformed to reflect fit (given number of males in a group) to the priority-of-access model; see Materials and Methods and Appendix for more details - **gen_distance_transform**: genetic distance estimate transform to test whether consortship probabilities decrease with genetic distance as well as genetic similarity - **rank_interact**: the multiplicative interaction of male rank and female rank in the potentially consorting pair - **assort_index**: assortative mating index, calculated from the hybrid scores of the male and female of a potentially consorting pair; see Materials and Methods for additional detail - **female_age_transform**: female age transformed to test for a higher probability of consortship behavior for maximally fertile (middle-aged) females ## Inspiration Here are a few ideas for things to look at in this dataset: - does genetic distance affect mating probability? - does age of the female baboon affect conception probability? - does social rank of the male affect mating probability?