TY - JOUR
T1 - Reproductive senescence and mating tactic interact and conflict to drive reproductive success in a passerine
AU - Riecke, Thomas V.
AU - Hegelbach, Johann
AU - Schaub, Michael
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
© 2023 The Authors. Journal of Animal Ecology published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd on behalf of British Ecological Society.
PY - 2023/4
Y1 - 2023/4
N2 - An understanding of the drivers of individual fitness is a fundamental component of evolutionary ecology and life-history theory. Reproductive senescence, mate and mating tactic choice and latent heterogeneity in individual quality interact to affect individual fitness. We sought to disentangle the effects of these fitness drivers, where longitudinal data are required to understand their respective impacts. We used reproductive allocation and success data from a long-term (1989–2018) study of white-throated dippers Cinclus cinclus in Switzerland to simultaneously examine the effects of female and male age, mating tactic, nest initiation date and individual heterogeneity on reproductive performance. We modelled quadratic and categorical effects of age on reproductive parameters. The probability of polygyny increased with age in both sexes before declining in older age classes. Similarly, hatching probability in monogamous pairs and the number of nestlings hatched in both monogamous and polygynous pairs increased with female age before declining later in life. As predicted, offspring survival in monogamous pairs increased with male age before declining in older age classes, but male age had no effect on offspring survival in polygynous nesting attempts. Our results demonstrate that parental age, mating tactic and individual heterogeneity all affect reproductive success, and that the impacts of senescent decline are expressed across different demographic components as a function of sex-specific senescent decline and mating tactic.
AB - An understanding of the drivers of individual fitness is a fundamental component of evolutionary ecology and life-history theory. Reproductive senescence, mate and mating tactic choice and latent heterogeneity in individual quality interact to affect individual fitness. We sought to disentangle the effects of these fitness drivers, where longitudinal data are required to understand their respective impacts. We used reproductive allocation and success data from a long-term (1989–2018) study of white-throated dippers Cinclus cinclus in Switzerland to simultaneously examine the effects of female and male age, mating tactic, nest initiation date and individual heterogeneity on reproductive performance. We modelled quadratic and categorical effects of age on reproductive parameters. The probability of polygyny increased with age in both sexes before declining in older age classes. Similarly, hatching probability in monogamous pairs and the number of nestlings hatched in both monogamous and polygynous pairs increased with female age before declining later in life. As predicted, offspring survival in monogamous pairs increased with male age before declining in older age classes, but male age had no effect on offspring survival in polygynous nesting attempts. Our results demonstrate that parental age, mating tactic and individual heterogeneity all affect reproductive success, and that the impacts of senescent decline are expressed across different demographic components as a function of sex-specific senescent decline and mating tactic.
KW - Cinclus cinclus
KW - individual heterogeneity
KW - monogamy
KW - polygyny
KW - reproductive allocation
KW - sex-specific senescence
KW - white-throated dipper
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85148456325&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1111/1365-2656.13893
DO - 10.1111/1365-2656.13893
M3 - Article
C2 - 36708046
AN - SCOPUS:85148456325
SN - 0021-8790
VL - 92
SP - 838
EP - 849
JO - Journal of Animal Ecology
JF - Journal of Animal Ecology
IS - 4
ER -