Nutrition regulates reproductive senescence and terminal investment across the reproductive cycle of a long-lived mammal.

ABSTRACT: Deterioration in nutritional condition with aging could reduce reproductive success but coincides with declines in residual reproductive potential, thus invoking opposing expectations for late-life reproduction. Yet, the mechanisms regulating energy accrual and allocation to reproduction and survival throughout the lifetime of long-lived, iteroparous animals have remained elusive owing to variation in energetic costs across their extended reproductive cycle (from conception to juvenile independence). Using 10 years of repeated measures of both nutrition (i.e., body fat and food availability) and reproductive allocation across the reproductive cycle of 232 free-ranging, adult, female mule deer, we revealed that nutrition is a critical piece in understanding patterns of reproductive senescen

SUBMITTER: LaSharr TN 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC11811141 | biostudies-literature | 2025 Feb

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature