PLOS ONE: The Case of Moulay Ismael - Fact or Fancy?

http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0085292

In general, results indicate that the Emperor could have reached his notorious reproductive success with fewer copulations than assumed so far - thus the historic reports could be facts and not fancy. With our simulation we could also provide evidence that the harem size is of lesser importance for the achievement of the reported reproductive success than thought so far. A breeding pool of 65 to 110 women leads to the maximum reproductive outcome. This highlights the importance of incorporating cost-benefit calculations – increasing the size of the breeding pool beyond that point increases the costs without additional benefits to outweigh them. Having a harem of 500 concubines might have been due to other considerations than maximization of individual reproductive outcome. For example, it could have been a means to remove the additional women from the reach of other men, thus depriving them of reproductive potential.

---Steve