Citation

Boyette AH, Lew-Levy S, Sarma MS, Gettler LT. Horm. Behav. 2019; 107: 35-45.

Affiliation

Department of Anthropology, University of Notre Dame, 244 Corbett Hall, Notre Dame, IN 46556, USA; Eck Institute for Global Health, USA; William J. Shaw Center for Children and Families, University of Notre Dame, 244 Corbett Hall, Notre Dame, IN 46556, USA. Electronic address: lgettler@nd.edu.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2019, Elsevier Publishing)

DOI

10.1016/j.yhbeh.2018.09.006

PMID

30268885

Abstract

Males in vertebrate species with biparental care commonly face a life history trade-off between investing in mating versus parenting effort. Among these males, testosterone is frequently elevated during mating and competition and reduced when males help raise offspring. These physiological patterns may be adaptive, increasing males' fitness through investments in young. However, for some species, including humans, indirect parenting often benefits young but can also involve male competition and risk-taking behavior and may be facilitated by elevated testosterone. Despite potential adaptive functions of biological responses to invested fatherhood, few if any mammalian studies have linked fathers' testosterone to offspring outcomes; no studies in humans have. Using data from a small-scale society of fisher-farmers from the Republic of the Congo, we find that fathers who were rated as better providers by their peers had higher testosterone, compared to other fathers in their community. However, children whose fathers had middle-range T compared to fathers with higher or lower levels had better energetic status (higher BMI; greater triceps skinfold thickness). Fathers' indirect and direct care helped to account for these associations between paternal T and children's energetic profiles. Given that human paternal direct and, especially, indirect care are thought to have been important evolutionarily and remain so in many contemporary societies, these findings help to shed light on the facultative nature of human biological responses to fatherhood and the relevance of these factors to children's well-being.

Copyright © 2018. Published by Elsevier Inc.

Language: en

Keywords

Androgens; Child growth; Congo-Brazzaville; Direct care; Indirect care; Paternal care; Subsistence agriculture