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114 results for “cost of reproduction”
Data and JAGS-code for "Michel et al 2022 Ecology and Evolution - Reduced habitat quality increases intrinsic but not ecological costs of reproduction"
<p><strong>Abstract</strong></p> <p>Although the costs of reproduction are predicted to vary with the quality of the breeding habitat thereby affecting population dynamics and life-history trade-offs, empirical evidence for this pattern remains sparse and equivocal. Costs of reproduction can operate through immediate ecological mechanisms or through delayed intrinsic mechanisms. Ignoring these separate pathways might hinder the identification of costs and the understanding of their consequences. We experimentally investigated the survival costs of reproduction for adult little owls (<em>Athene noctua</em>) within a gradient of habitat quality. We supplemented food to nestlings, thereby relieving the parents’ effort for brood provisioning. We used radio-tracking and Bayesian multi-state modelling based on marked recapture and dead recovery to estimate survival rates of adult little owls across the year as a function of food supplementation and habitat characteristics. Food supplementation to nestlings during the breeding season increased parental survival not only during the breeding season but also during the rest of the year. Thus, the low survival of parents of unfed broods likely represents both, strong ecological and strong intrinsic costs of reproduction. However, while immediate ecological costs occurred also in high quality habitats, intrinsic costs carrying over to the post-breeding period occurred only in low quality habitats. Our results suggest that immediate costs resulting from ecological mechanisms such as predation, are high also in territories of high habitat quality. Long-term costs resulting from intrinsic trade-offs, however, are only paid in low quality habitats. Consequently, differential effects of habitat quality on immediate ecological and delayed intrinsic mechanisms can mask the increase of costs of reproduction in low quality breeding habitats. Intrinsic costs may represent an underrated mechanism of habitat quality affecting adult survival rate thereby considerably accelerating population decline in degrading habitats. This study therefore highlights the need for a long-term perspective to fully assess the costs of reproduction and the role of habitat quality in modifying these costs.</p>
Data from: Breeding phenology drives variation in reproductive output, reproductive costs and offspring fitness in a viviparous ectotherm
<p>Phenological advances are a widespread response to global warming and can contribute to determine the climate vulnerability of organisms, particularly in ectothermic species which are highly dependent on ambient temperatures to complete their life cycle. Yet, the relative contribution of breeding dates and temperature conditions during gestation on fitness of females and their offspring is poorly documented in reptiles. Here, we exposed females of the common lizard <em>Zootoca vivipara </em>to contrasting thermal scenarios (cold versus hot treatment) during gestation and quantified effects of parturition dates and thermal treatment on life-history traits of females and their offspring for one year. Overall, our results suggest that parturition date has a greater impact than thermal conditions during gestation on life history strategies. In particular, we found positive effects of an earlier parturition date on juvenile survival, growth and recruitment suggesting that environmental dependent selection and/or differences in parental quality between early and late breeders underlie seasonal changes in offspring fitness. Yet, an earlier parturition date compromised the energetic condition of gravid females, which suggests the existence of a mother-offspring conflict regarding the optimisation of parturition dates. While numerous studies focused on the direct effects of alterations in incubation temperatures on reptile life-history traits, our results highlight the importance of considering the role of breeding phenology in assessing the short- and long-term effects of thermal developmental plasticity.</p>
Condition-dependent sexual reproduction is driven by benefits, not costs of sex
<p>Facultative sexual organisms must allocate resources to both asexual and sexual reproduction. Optimal patterns of investment in sex depend on the relative costs and benefits of each reproductive mode, and may consequently be context- and condition-dependent. Two proposed explanations for the observed variation in investment in sex among facultative sexual lineages invoke alternative condition-dependent scenarios. Under the 'fitness-associated sex' hypothesis, sex is predicted when individuals are in poor condition or experience stressful environments. Under the 'resource-demanding sex' hypothesis, sex is only affordable to individuals in good condition experiencing favourable environments. Direct tests of these contrasting hypotheses are rare; moreover, investment in different components of sexual reproduction responds differently to cues promoting sex, and may be subject to different energetic constraints. Using genotypes of facultative sexual Daphnia carinata that differ in their level of investment in sex, we manipulated resource availability while accounting for day length (a seasonal cue for sex) to evaluate these hypotheses. The sexual response to day length depended on resource availability: increased day lengths and reduced food availability increased the production of sexual eggs, and relative investment in males, in a manner consistent with the fitness-associated sex hypothesis. The pattern of condition-dependence was specific to each component of reproductive investment – while male production covaried with asexual fecundity across genotypes, increased sexual egg production was associated with reduced asexual reproduction. Our results suggest that investment in sex is determined largely by its context-dependent advantages, and that this investment is not moderated by immediate costs to asexual reproduction.</p>
Individual optimization of reproductive investment and the cost of incubation in a wild songbird
<p>Despite keen interest in life-history trade-offs and the costs of reproduction, evidence that increased parental allocation reduces subsequent breeding productivity is mixed. Some of this uncertainty is attributable to environmental heterogeneity in space and time, necessitating multi-year field experiments. Across three breeding seasons, we cross-fostered clutches between nests to manipulate females' incubation duration in a wild population of Carolina wrens, a small songbird species in which only females incubate, to test for the cost of incubation on current and future reproduction. Prolonged incubation affected maternal productivity within seasons, impacting their current offspring post-hatching and their probability of breeding subsequently, both in a manner that depended upon the current environment and level of maternal investment (initial egg and brood size), suggesting incubation effort is optimized according to other components of investment and individual quality. Effects of incubation duration on subsequent fledging success and nestling condition varied between years, being costly in one year, beneficial in another, and neutral in the third. Thus, our results suggest that the costs of increased incubation effort were almost entirely dependent upon the maternal quality and environmental variation, thus demonstrating the importance of multi-year experiments for robust inference of the costs of reproduction and evolution of life histories.</p>
Reciprocal costs of infection and reproduction in D. melanogaster
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Feather growth rate and hormone deposition vary with elevation but not reproductive costs in resident Mountain Chickadees
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Condition-dependent sexual reproduction is driven by benefits, not costs of sex
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Individual optimization of reproductive investment and the cost of incubation in a wild songbird
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Data from: Male rock lizards may compensate reproductive costs of an immune challenge affecting sexual signals
<p><span><span><span><span><span><span><span><span><span><span><span><span><span>Sexual signals can be evolutionarily stable if they are condition dependent or costly to the signaler. One of these costs may be the trade-off between maintaining the immune system and the elaboration of ornaments. Experimental immune challenges in captivity show a reduction in the expression of sexual signals, but it is not clear whether these detrimental effects are important in nature and, more importantly, whether they have reproductive consequences. We designed a field experiment to challenge the immune system of wild male Carpetan rock lizards, Iberolacerta cyreni, with a bacterial antigen (LPS). The immune challenge decreased relative reflectance of UV structural and melanin-dependent sexual coloration in the throat and the lateral ocelli, whereas the carotenoid-dependent dorsal green coloration was not affected. Immune activation also decreased proportions of ergosterol and cholesta-5,7-dien-3-ol in femoral secretions. These results support a trade-off between the immune system and both visual and chemical sexual ornaments. Moreover, reproductive success of males, estimated with DNA microsatellites, depended on the expression of some color and chemical traits. However, the immune challenge did not cause overall differences in reproductive success, although it increased with body size/age in control but not in challenged males. This suggests the use of alternative reproductive strategies (e.g. forced matings) in challenged males, particularly in smaller ones. These males might consider that their survival probabilities are low and increase reproductive effort as a form of terminal investment in spite of their "low-quality" sexual signals and potential survival costs.</span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></p>
Data from: Costs of selfing prevent the spread of a self-compatibility mutation that causes reproductive assurance
In flowering plants, shifts from outcrossing to partial or complete self-fertilization have occurred independently thousands of times, yet the underlying adaptive processes are difficult to discern. Selfing's ability to provide reproductive assurance when pollination is uncertain is an oft-cited ecological explanation for its evolution, but this benefit may be outweighed by genetic costs diminishing its selective advantage over outcrossing. We directly studied the fitness effects of a self-compatibility (SC) mutation that was backcrossed into a self-incompatible (SI) population of Leavenworthia alabamica, illuminating the direction and magnitude of selection on the mating-system modifier. In array experiments conducted in two years, SC plants produced 17-26% more seed, but this advantage was counteracted by extensive seed discounting -- the replacement of high-quality outcrossed seeds by selfed seeds. Using a simple model and simulations, we demonstrate that SC mutations with these attributes rarely spread to high frequency in natural populations, unless inbreeding depression falls below a threshold value (0.57 ≤ threshold ≤ 0.70) in SI populations. A combination of heavy seed discounting and moderate inbreeding depression likely explains why outcrossing adaptations such as self-incompatibility are maintained generally, despite persistent input of selfing mutations and frequent limits on outcross seed production in nature.
Data from: Maternal oxidative stress and reproduction: testing the constraint, cost and shielding hypotheses in a wild mammal
1. Oxidative stress has been proposed as a central causal mechanism underlying the life history trade-off between current and future reproduction and survival in wild animals. 2. Whereas mixed evidence suggests that maternal oxidative stress may act both as a constraint and a cost to reproduction, some studies have reported a lack of association between reproduction and maternal oxidative stress. 3. The oxidative shielding hypothesis offers an alternative explanation, suggesting that mothers may pre-emptively mitigate the oxidative costs of reproduction by increasing antioxidant defences prior to reproduction. 4. We tested the oxidative constraint, cost, and shielding hypotheses using a longitudinal field study of oxidative stress levels in a species that breeds using daily energy income, the Columbian ground squirrel (Urocitellus columbianus). 5. Elevated maternal oxidative damage prior to reproduction was associated with higher maternal investment in litter mass at birth, but not at weaning. 6. Breeding females increased their antioxidant capacity and decreased their oxidative damage from birth to lactation compared to non-breeding females measured at the same time periods. However, lower maternal oxidative stress during lactation was not associated with higher offspring survival or mass growth over this period. 7. Our results provide little evidence for maternal oxidative stress acting as a constraint on, or cost to, reproduction in Columbian ground squirrels, but partially support the idea that oxidative shielding occurred to buffer potential oxidative costs of reproduction.
Data from: indirect costs of reproduction and the tradeoff between offspring size and number: a framework illustrated by fitness costs and benefits of ovarian fluid
<p>Theory describing evolution of offspring size often assumes that the production cost per unit volume is the same for small and large offspring. However, this may not be true if indirect costs of reproduction (e.g., material and energetic costs of supporting offspring development) scale disproportionately with offspring size. Here we show how direct and indirect costs of reproduction can be explicitly modeled within the Smith-Fretwell framework and how observations of size-number relationships can thus be used to evaluate indirect costs. We applied this analysis to measures of egg volume and fecundity for over 300 individuals of a coastal fish species and found that the tradeoff was much stronger than the expected inverse (fecundity scaled with volume<sup>-1.843</sup>). Larger offspring were thus more expensive to produce. For our study species, an important indirect cost was that larger eggs were accompanied by disproportionately more ovarian fluid. Calorimetry and removal experiments were used to further measure both the energetic costs and fitness benefits of ovarian fluid. In addition, we show that indirect costs of reproduction can intensify size-number tradeoffs in a variety of fishes. Indirect costs of reproduction can be large and may therefore play an important role in the evolution of offspring size.</p>
Sublethal reproductive costs associated with experimental heat waves in the copepod, Tigriopus californicus
<p>Physiological stress may induce sublethal effects on fitness by limiting energy availability and shifting energy allocation, which can incur reproductive costs. Sublethal reproductive costs may affect vital rates, linking stress events such as heat waves to population demography. Here, we test the hypothesis that heat wave intensity and consecutive days of exposure to heat wave temperatures impact survival and individual reproductive success. We subjected groups of the marine harpacticoid copepod, <i>Tigriopus californicus,</i> to six heat wave regimes that differed in maximum exposure temperature, 26°C or 32°C, and number of consecutive exposure days (1, 2, or 7), and predicted that survival and reproductive costs would increase with heat wave intensity and duration. We measured individual survival and offspring production during the heat waves and for two weeks following the last day of each experimental heat wave. Despite similar survivorship between the two maximum temperature treatments, sublethal effects of heat wave intensity were observed. Consistent with our predictions, individuals that experienced the higher maximum temperature 32°C heat waves produced fewer offspring overall than those that experienced the 26°C heat wave. Furthermore, the number of naupliar larvae (nauplii) per clutch was lower in the 32°C group for egg clutches produced immediately after the final day of exposure. Our results are consistent with the hypothesis that increasing thermal stress can lead to sublethal costs, even with no discernible effects on mortality. Heat waves may not always have lethal effects on individuals, especially for individuals that are adapted to routine exposures to high temperatures, such as those occupying the high intertidal. Costs, however, associated with stress and/or reduced performance due to non-linearities, can affect short-term demographic rates. The effect of these short-term sublethal perturbations is needed to fully understand the potential for population rescue and evolution in the face of rapid climate change.</p>
The expression of demographic costs of reproduction varies among coexisting plants with different life history traits
<p><span>1. </span><span>Demographic costs of reproduction in flowering plants should depend on life history and reproductive effort, but how the expression of costs varies with life history traits is poorly understood.</span></p> <p><span>2. </span><span>We experimentally increased and reduced reproductive effort (fruit production) to quantify demographic costs of reproduction in four coexisting species with contrasting growth forms (clonal vs. nonclonal) and flower production (single- vs. multi-flowered). We repeated the experiment in three years, and measured demographic rates the year after treatment. In two years, we also quantified costs of flower maintenance by contrasting the performance of nonfruiting plants with intact flowers and plants with their flowers removed.</span></p> <p><span>3. </span><span>Costs varied among species, in both magnitude and demographic rate affected. Costs of natural reproduction were expressed as reductions in size and fecundity next year, whereas increased reproduction additionally reduced sprouting probability. The magnitude of demographic costs of both reproduction and flower maintenance was highest in the nonclonal, multi-flowered species, and costs were more frequently detected in the two multi-flowered species than in the single-flowered ones. This may be explained by higher biomass allocation to reproductive parts and a longer flowering period in the former. Demographic costs of reproduction did not depend on clone size.</span></p> <p><span>4. </span><span>These results document that demographic costs vary among coexisting species sharing similar niches, and are associated with divergence in life history traits. Such trait-dependent variation in costs may reduce competition among coexisting species and facilitate diversity.</span></p>
Evolution of female colors in birds: The role of female cost of reproduction and paternal care
<p><span>Female ornamentation is frequently observed in animal species and is sometimes found as more evolutionarily labile than male ornamentation. A complex array of factors may explain its presence and variation. Here we assessed the role of female cost of reproduction and paternal care. Both factors have been pinpointed as important by theoretical studies but have not been investigated yet in detail at the interspecific level. We worked on 133 species of North temperate Passeriformes bird species for which both the clutch volume – here taken as the proxy of female cost of reproduction – and the amount of paternal care are relatively well known. Using spectrometry, we measured the whole-body colored plumage patches and quantified three metrics corresponding to brightness (i.e. achromatic component), color chromaticity (i.e. intensity), and color volume (i.e. diversity). We found a strong association between male and female color metrics. Controlling for this association, we found additional small but detectable effects of both cost of reproduction and paternal care. First, females of species with more paternal care were slightly brighter. Second, the interaction between the level of paternal care and egg volume was correlated with female color intensity: females with more paternal care tended to be more chromatic, only when their investment in reproduction was low. Together these results suggest that female cost of reproduction and paternal care are part of the multiple factors explaining variation of female coloration, besides the strong covariation between male and female coloration.</span></p>
Data in support of "Metabolic loads and the costs of metazoan reproduction"
<p>Reproduction includes two energy investments—the energy in the offspring and the energy expended to make them. The former is well understood, whereas the latter is unquantified but often assumed to be small. Without understanding both investments, the true energy costs of reproduction are unknown. We present a framework for estimating the total energy costs of reproduction by combining data on the energy content of offspring (direct costs) and the metabolic load of bearing them (indirect costs). We find that direct costs typically represent the smaller fraction of the energy expended on reproduction. Mammals pay the highest reproductive costs (excluding lactation), ~90% of which are indirect. Ectotherms expend less on reproduction overall, and live-bearing ectotherms pay higher indirect costs compared with egg-layers. We show that the energy demands of reproduction exceed standard assumptions.</p>
Are breeding activities risky for northern bobwhites? An assessment of survival costs of reproduction
<p>Behaviors associated with breeding can increase mortality risk. This increased risk can be thought of as a cost of reproduction. Increased movements prior to breeding are common as individuals search for food and breeding sites. These increased movements are thought to entail greater predation risks as individuals travel through unfamiliar areas but few studies have looked at how these prebreeding movements affect survival, especially at a fine temporal resolution. Costs of reproduction may also occur during reproduction. For birds, incubation and brood-rearing can increase predation risk because individuals spend most of their time at nest sites or with broods, which may make them more easily detected and captured by predators. Using time- and individual-specific predictors of survival, I examined the relationship between survival, movements, habitat use, and breeding status of northern bobwhites <em>Colinus virginianus</em> in Colorado, USA. I found that prebreeding ranges were larger for breeders (29 ha) than non-breeders (18.7 ha) but daily movement distance was not different (163 m). Range size did not affect survival; however, longer recent daily movement distances (within 10 days) resulted in higher survival. Breeding status also affected survival; laying individuals experienced the highest daily survival rates followed by incubating, non-breeding and brood-rearing individuals. Overall, there appears to be a survival cost of reproduction for individuals during brood-rearing, but I found no evidence that increased movements results in decreased survival.</p>
Data and code for: Optimal clutch size revisited: separating individual quality from the costs of reproduction
<p>Life-history theory, central to our understanding of diversity in morphology, behaviour and senescence, describes how traits evolve through the optimisation of trade-offs in investment. Despite considerable study, there is only minimal support for trade-offs within species between the two traits most closely linked to fitness – reproduction and survival – questioning the theory's general validity. We used a meta-analysis to separate quality effects from the costs of reproduction using studies of parental investment and survival in birds. Experimental enlargement of broods caused reduced parental survival. However, the effect of experimental enlargements was small and opposite to the effect of phenotypic quality, where individuals that naturally produced larger clutches also survived better. The opposite effects on survival in experimental and observational studies of parental care provide the first meta-analytic evidence for theory suggesting that quality differences mask trade-offs. Fitness projections using the overall effect size revealed that reproduction presented negligible costs, except when reproductive effort was forced beyond the level observed within species, to that seen between species. We conclude that there is little support for the most fundamental life-history trade-off, between reproduction and longevity, operating within a population. We suggest that within species, the fitness landscape of the reproduction–survival trade-off is flat until it reaches the boundaries of the between-species fast-slow life-history continuum. Our interpretation explains why the costs of reproduction are not apparent and why variation in reproductive output persists within species.</p>
Data from: The costs of living on the coast: reduction in body size and size-specific reproductive output in coastal populations of a widespread amphibian
<ol> <li>Body size is a critical component of organismal biology. Body size is known to be influenced by a plethora of environmental conditions, among which exposure to large-scale variations of salinity has been comparatively overlooked. Yet, exposure to salinity is known to affect energetic allocation toward growth and reproduction.</li> <li>In this study, we investigated the morphological differences between inland and coastal individuals of spined toads (<em>Bufo</em> <em>spinosus</em>) in Western France. </li> <li>We measured adult morphology both outside and during the reproductive season on 190 individuals, and assessed reproduction in pairs originating from inland (N=20) and coastal (N=30) environments.</li> <li>Overall, we found that adult coastal toads were smaller and lighter than inland individuals. Reproductive correlates of these differences included lower fecundity and smaller egg size (but higher egg density) in coastal females. Interestingly, these differences were not allometric correlates of body size, as coastal females invested proportionally less in all components of reproduction (fecundity, egg size and egg protection).</li> <li>These results suggest altered resource allocation to growth and reproduction in coastal amphibians, which may be related to the marked spatial gradient of salinity (measured in reproductive ponds) and the associated costs of osmoregulation (higher osmolality in coastal individuals), for which local adaptation and higher tolerance to salinity remains to be tested.</li> </ol>
Taxing reproduction: The full transfer cost of rearing children in Europe
<p>What are the intergenerational resource transfer contributions of parents and non-parents in Europe? Using National Transfer Accounts and National Time Transfer Accounts for twelve countries around 2010, we go beyond public transfers (net taxes) to also value two statistically much less visible transfer types in the family realm: of market goods (money) and of unpaid household labour (time). Non-parents contribute almost exclusively to public transfers. But parents additionally provide still larger private transfers: mothers mainly time, fathers mainly money. Estimating transfer stocks over the working life, the average parental/non-parental contribution ratio flips from 0.73 (public transfers alone) to 2.66 (all three transfers combined). The tax rates implicitly imposed thereby on rearing children are multiples of the value-added tax rates in place on consumption goods. The magnitude of these invisible transfer asymmetries carries multiple implications for policy debates. For instance, it raises the question whether European societies unwittingly tax their own reproduction too heavily.</p>
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