Are there gay animals

We explicitly move away from viewing SSB as aberrant or as mutually exclusive from DSB, instead acknowledging that individuals and populations of animals can engage in a spectrum of sexual behaviors that include both DSB and SSB in a vast array of combinations.

This perspective leads us to propose the following alternative scenario: what if SSB has been around since animals began to engage in sexual behavior of any kind?

In our hypothesis, the ancestral animal species mated indiscriminately with regard to sex, i. Indeed, indiscriminate mating can be more beneficial than it is costly. Mate recognition can require physiologically and cognitively costly adaptations, and being excessively discriminating in choosing mates can lead individuals to miss out on mating opportunities that lead to reproduction, a significant fitness cost.

And so, we hypothesize that present-day diversity in sexual behavior in animals stems from an ancestral background of indiscriminate mating among individuals of all sexes.

In some branches of the animal tree of life, where SSB is actually quite costly, this behavior might be selected against. Scientists currently lack comprehensive knowledge of how common SSB is across species, largely because these behaviors have historically been regarded as unseemly or irrelevant and have only been recorded incidentally. We predict that the systematic documentation of SSB across animal taxa, and the quantification of the costs and benefits of both SSB and DSB, would reveal that it is both more common and less costly than is currently widely assumed.

In presenting our hypothesis of the ancestral origins for SSB in animals, we suggest nothing about conceptualizing human sexual behavior. It should never be the place of science to make normative arguments about people.

Indeed, we suggest that human culture has likely had far more impact on the study of biology than vice versa. Instead, we hope our hypothesis will expand understanding of the diversity of the natural world. We encourage scientists to consider what discoveries in evolutionary biology are possible when we break free from the cultural norms and assumptions that have historically constrained scientific creativity.

In this regard, scientists have much to learn from other disciplines, such as science and technology studies STS , that apply critical lenses to the processes of science. Interdisciplinary collaboration with scholars in such fields has the potential to make science more robust by teaching scientists to account for the inevitable role society and culture play in all forms of research. The questions we ask shape our understanding of the world, but these questions are also shaped by our understanding of the world.

Who we are influences the hypotheses we craft and the assumptions we make. In , Savolainen started some work on animal homosexuality, beginning with a chapter on the Evolution of Homosexuality.

Since then, he has assembled a collaborative team of researchers to examine the question through field work, genomic sequencing and new theoretical models. On Imperial's Silwood Park campus, Savolainen's PhD student Jackson Clive is spending some of his final days in the lab before he heads out for field work. It will be his second of many months-long trips to observe rhesus macaques in the wild.

Female homosexuality has been well studied in Japanese macaques, but Clive's research would examine how homosexual behaviour differs in males and across environments. Clive explains: "Behavioural studies take a long time especially for these unpredictable and infrequent behaviours, which includes almost all sexual behaviours. You have to do a lot of sitting around and watching while also being quite alert. It takes quite a lot of effort to recognize these individual primates.

In one social group I have to recognize males individually. He noticed mounting between male gorillas, though that was not the main focus of his research at the time. I can give you papers on beetles, spiders, flies, fish, flamingos, geese, bison, deer, gibbons, bats - loads of bats, bats get up to all sorts," he says.

It's early days for the Imperial research team. Recording homosexual behaviour in the wild and collecting blood samples are the first steps for Clive; the next is sequencing DNA to search for connections between the behaviour and genetic markers. In there was a media frenzy over the discovery of the 'gay gene'.

This idea stemmed from a study showing a correlation between genetic marker Xq28 and male homosexuality, although there were statistical uncertainties about some of the findings. Scientists have successfully modelled other complex or polygenic traits like height. There is not a single 'tall' or 'short'. Instead, height is determined by changes across hundreds of genes in combination with environmental factors. To understand what gives rise to complex traits and behaviours, researchers must identify where the genetic changes take place and what underlying processes are driving them.

Then they can see what this should look like in the real world. The biological and hereditary factors of homosexuality are most certainly not tied to a single gene. Researchers aren't searching for one genetic marker or one cause but a combination of factors that give rise to certain behaviours under specific circumstances.

To create models of homosexuality, Savolainen recruited Ewan Flintham as a PhD student in evolutionary biology at Imperial. Flintham previously worked on models for speciation? He says: "We have the capacity to model complex behaviours and pull on massive amounts of data. However, creating a complex model isn't beneficial unless it is modelling a useful concept.

There are many theories about why homosexuality is important for reproduction and evolution. Like many birds, swans are monogamous and stick with one partner for years. Many of them choose a same-sex partner. In fact, around 20 percent of swan couples are homosexuals - and they often start families together.

Sometimes, one swan in a male couple will mate with a female, and then drive her away once she's laid a clutch of eggs. In other cases, they adopt abandoned eggs. Male walruses only reach sexual maturity at the age of 4. Until then, they are almost exclusively gay. Once they've reached maturity, most males are bisexual and mate with females during breeding season - while having sex with other males the rest of the year.

It's not just gay sex though - the males also embrace each other and sleep close to one another in water. Studies suggest that up to 8 percent of males in flocks of sheep prefer other males, even when fertile females are around. However, this only occurs among domestic sheep. Studies have found that these homosexual sheep have a different brain structure than their heterosexual counterparts, and release less sex hormones.

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