Lekking by Default: Female Habitat Preferences and Male Strategies in Uganda Kob

In lek-breeding ungulates, males defend small territories clustered on traditional mating grounds called leks. One explanation for the evolution of lek-breeding is that males hold lek territories as a default strategy when they cannot monopolize females by defending female home ranges, stable female groups or predictable resource patches. The assumptions of this explanation were tested by comparing the distribution of males, females and resources in a lekking antelope, the Uganda kob (Kobus kob thomasi) in Queen Elizabeth National Park, Uganda. Methods included repeated censuses along transects and multiple Poisson regression. Female kob were associated strongly with short, green grass and more weakly with particular growth stages, vegetation communities and landforms