The rapidly decreasing costs of generating genetic data sequencing and the ease of new DNA collection technologies have opened up new opportunities for anthropologists to conduct field-based genetic studies. An exciting aspect of this work comes from linking genetic data with the kinds of individual-level traits evolutionary anthropologists often rely on, such as those collected in long-term demographic and ethnographic studies. However, combining these two types of data raises a host of ethical questions related to the collection, analysis and reporting of such data. Here we address this conundrum by examining one particular case, the collection and analysis of paternity data. We are particularly interested in the logistics and ethics involved in genetic paternity testing in the localized settings where anthropologists often work. We discuss the particular issues related to paternity testing in these settings, including consent and disclosure, consideration of local identity and beliefs and developing a process of continued community engagement. We then present a case study of our own research in Namibia, where we developed a multi-tiered strategy for consent and community engagement, built around a double-blind procedure for data collection, analysis and reporting.

Men's discourse about the paternal role is changing significantly. Despite the fact that men still perceive themselves as being responsible for the family's economical protection and the children's discipline, they face increasing demands for more involvement in childcare. From this perspective, this work analyzes the traditional view of gender roles and the perception of inequality in a sample of 95 employed fathers, as well as the various levels of satisfaction with other life roles and their relevance as a function of some gender and sociodemographic variables. The results show that men do not maintain a very traditional gender ideology with regard to role distribution and they still consider the paternal role and feelings as the most important thing in their lives. However, the couple relationship gives them the most satisfaction. Level of traditionalism and age were the two significant predicting variables of perception of inequality of men and women.

In most cultures, extramarital sex is highly restricted for women. In most of those cultures, men transfer wealth to their own sons (patrilineal inheritance). In some cultures extramarital sex is not highly restricted for women, and in most of those cultures, men transfer wealth to their sisters' sons (matrilineal inheritance). Inheritance to sisters' sons ensures a man's biological relatedness to his heirs, and matrilineal inheritance has been posited as a male accommodation to cuckoldry—a paternity strategy—at least since the 15th century. However, longitudinal analysis of the cumulative effect of female extramarital sex indicates that matrilineal inheritance is most advantageous for women and would be more accurately considered a grandmaternity strategy. That is, if the probability that men's putative children are their biological children (ρ = probability of paternity) is less than 1, the probabilistic degree of relatedness between a female and her matrilineal heirs is higher than her corresponding relatedness to her patrilineal heirs. The same holds true for men only if ρ is very low (< 0.46). The upshot is that for moderate levels of female extramarital sex, matrilineal inheritance, relative to patrilineal inheritance, is highly advantageous for women and disadvantageous for men. Consideration of female variance in reproductive success beyond the first generation, and of a man's network of obligation to the inclusive fitness of his relatives, suggests that although the establishment of matrilineal inheritance may require extremely high levels of female extramarital sex, once established, it is likely to be maintained at levels of ρ that reasonably characterize many societies in the ethnographic record. New analysis of previously published data shows a strong association between matrilineal inheritance and moderate to low probability of paternity, and an even stronger relationship between patrilineal inheritance and high probability of paternity.

The identity of Anisakis type II larvae with adult A. physeteris was confirmed by comparison of restriction fragment length polymorphisms (RFLPs) of 25S ribosomal DNA (rDNA). Patterns of RFLPs in larvae were almost identical with those in adult worms. Directly labelled 25S rDNA might serve as an appropriate probe with highly specific activity for examining RFLPs of larvae and adult worms.

In most species, females invest more in their offspring than males. In mammals, this also holds true after the birth of young since only mothers can lactate and fathers are thus more likely to desert and seek additional mating opportunities. These opportunities are largely dependent on resource distribution and the resulting distribution of females. The emerging social and mating systems of different species give rise to different benefits of investment in paternal care. Paternal care should have evolved in relation to the frequency of losing paternities to other males. Hence, in species living in one-male systems with little opportunity for female extra-pair copulations, paternal care should be more common than in those species living in multi-male groups. The guinea pigs (Caviinae) comprise closely related species exhibiting different social organizations and mating systems. The amount of paternal behaviour and offspring-directed aggression was investigated in three species kept under laboratory conditions: the polygynous Cavia aperea, the promiscuous Galea musteloides and a newly described monogamous species (Galea monasteriensis sp. nov.). All animals were kept in groups of one adult male and one adult female with their non-weaned offspring. Cavia aperea as well as G. monasteriensis males showed a high incidence of paternal behaviour, which consisted primarily of playing with offspring and grooming them. In contrast, G. musteloides males never engaged in paternal behaviour but directed more aggressive behaviour towards their offspring. Mating with multiple partners and multiple paternities are common in G. musteloides whereas in the former two species there is a much higher certainty of paternity. We conclude that paternal behaviour in guinea pigs probably co-evolved in alignment with the certainty of paternity that males of a species encounter under natural conditions.

Prolonged sperm storage, rare among mammals, is widespread among bats and may promote sperm competition, assuming stored sperm are fertile. However, while sperm storage has been documented in many bat species, there have been few investigations of the fertility of stored sperm. Related to this, and a fundamental question in the study of competition at the gametic level, is the effect of mating order on success during sperm competition. For mammals there are no clear mating order effects, in part because females do not store sperm for prolonged periods, but there have been no investigations of mating order effects during sperm competition in sperm-storing bats. I report here on a study designed to investigate the fertility of stored sperm and the effects of mating order on success during sperm competition in a captive colony of Australian long-eared bats Nyctophilus geoffroyi (Chiroptera: Vespertilionidae). Bats were housed in outdoor flight-cages, under natural light and temperature regimes. Females were housed serially with two males and were separated from them at intervals throughout the year.

Blood plasma progesterone concentrations, measured using double antibody radioimmunoassay, were monitored to assess the duration of sperm storage. Paternity of offspring was assessed using genetic markers identified using gel electrophoresis of blood enzymes. Blood plasma progesterone concentrations were basal from early autumn till mid-late winter, increased markedly during pregnancy, and generally fell back to basal 5–6 weeks post-partum. Data indicated that females could store fertile sperm for more than 90 days, while sperm stored by males were fertile after 4–5 months' storage. Paternity was significantly biased toward one male which fathered all offspring. Results are discussed in the context of sperm competition.

A method is presented for partitioning the variance associated with human smoking behavior into additive genetic, nonadditive genetic, prenatal environmental, postnatal familial environmental, and postnatal extrafamilial environmental components. Estimations can also be made of additive genetic and residual correlations between spouses and of the correlation between parental additive genetic effect and progeny nonadditive genetic and environmental effect. The variance estimates are free of the biases that might result from these correlations. The statistical genetic analysis is being applied to a large group of MZ and DZ twins, their spouses, and their adult children who live in southern Sweden. Blood samples from each subject will be used to identify their genetic constitution for a number of biochemical polymorphisms, some of which may be considered a priori to have possible relationships to smoking. Associations and genetic linkages between biochemical marker loci and quantitative behavioral traits will be sought. Traits of interest include a wide array of tobacco-use variables, motives for smoking, personality and cognitive variables, and other variables associated with drug use and health. Zygosity determinations based on biochemical polymorphisms have indicated MZ to DZ and DZ to MZ misclassification rates of 0% and 6.15%, respectively, when based solely on external morphology and questionnaire data. The nonpaternity ratio of the fathers with respect to their supposedly biological children is estimated to be 0.28%. Gene frequency estimates for 21 marker loci show that the sample of twins and their relatives is quite representative of the Swedish population at large. All loci were in Hardy-Weinberg-Castle equilibrium, with no evidence of assortative mating for biochemical traits. The MZ twins are significantly more concordant than the DZ twins with respect to whether they have ever had a smoking habit.