Wu Gang (closest) and Xiang Ge during our experimental male-male competition

Wu Gang (closest) and Xiang Ge during our experimental male-male competition

Some of you may be wondering what we do over here besides having bamboo fights and hanging out with pandas all day.  We are conducting research on the effects of male-male competition in giant pandas during breeding season. The enclosures are set up so that a female whose progestogen levels are rising (indicating she is close to estrus) is located between two males. Our experiment gives the males an opportunity to compete through a windowed barrier. We observe all three panda’s behaviors before and after the male-male competition. The hope is that because of the competition the males become more excited and interested in the female. In turn the males are more reproductively successful, leading to intromission success and a panda cub in 3-6 months!

We were very excited to observe our first male-male competition. The anticipation was high to see aggressive and territorial behavior, which is not usually seen from these bear cats. The first experiment centered on Hua Mei’s estrus with Wu Gang and Jin Ke competing. We moved Wu Gang over to be next to Jin Ke annndddd…..nothing! The bears were surprisingly calm and really just checked each other out, a little foot scraping (a territorial behavior) from Wu Gang, then they both went about their own business. When it came time to mate though, both males were successful!

Wu Gang and Hua Mei - successful!!

Wu Gang and Hua Mei – successfully mated after Wu Gang was given male-male competition!!

We’ve observed a few more male-male competitions since then and have seen more of the competitive behaviors we were expecting. Between Wu Gang and Xiang Ge we observed some growling, foot scraping, barking, charging and more.

https://youtu.be/ASWI5pqN6SY

There were very similar behaviors observed between Lu Lu and An An with the addition of some very impressive chomps from Lu Lu.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_ep45UJpLYk

These behaviors are very exciting but they don’t tell us everything. In addition to recording the behaviors on an ethogram we collect fecal samples from the males.

Jen collecting fecal samples, rain or shine.

Jen collecting fecal samples, rain or shine.

These samples are analyzed to see if the male’s testosterone levels rise during a female’s estrus surrounding these male-male competitions like they do in males the wild.

Though sample sizes are too low right now to take a good guess at what results we may be seeing, we hope to get some good data and results from this breeding season. So far and have been able to arrange and observe many male-male competitions and matings and the season is barely half way through!

-Jenn