ORIGINAL PAPER Male–female socio-spatial relationships and reproduction in wild chimpanzees

Abstract Recent research on primates and other taxa has shown that the relationships individuals form with members of the same sex affect their reproductive success. Evidence showing that intersexual relationships also influence repro-duction, however, is more equivocal. Here, we show that male chimpanzees living in an exceptionally large commu-nity display long-term tendencies to associate with particu-lar females. These association patterns are likely to arise because individuals of both sexes selectively range in spe-cific areas of the communal territory, with males inheriting the ranging patterns of their mothers. These differentiated male–female socio-spatial relationships involved males of widely varying ranks, and their effect on reproduction is as strong as that of male dominance rank, which in turn is as strong a predictor of reproductive success at Ngogo as i