Adaptations of female lions to infanticide by incoming males

This influential analysis of long-term Serengeti and Ngorongoro data examined how female lions respond to the takeover of their pride by new males, an event that typically triggers infanticide of dependent cubs. The authors showed that females do not passively accept these losses: they resist incoming males, conceive again rapidly after losing a litter, and synchronize breeding so that cubs are reared communally in a creche. Reproductive synchrony spreads the cost of infanticide and lets females collectively defend and nurse young. The paper framed lion reproduction as an evolutionary contest between the sexes and demonstrated how social structure, mating systems, and the timing of estrus are shaped by the threat of male turnover, a model later extended to many other mammals.