No evidence for a trade-off between reproduction and survival in a meta-analysis across birds.

ABSTRACT: 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 - reproductive effort and survival - questioning the theory's general validity. We used a meta-analysis to separate the effects of individual quality (positive survival/reproduction correlation) from the costs of reproduction (negative survival/reproduction correlation) using studies of reproductive effort and parental survival in birds. Experimental enlargement of brood size caused reduced parental survival. However, the effect size of brood size manipulation was sm

SUBMITTER: Winder LA 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC11957541 | biostudies-literature | 2025 Mar

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature