What shall I do now? State-dependent variations of life-history traits with aging in Wandering Albatrosses.

ABSTRACT: Allocation decisions depend on an organism's condition which can change with age. Two opposite changes in life-history traits are predicted in the presence of senescence: either an increase in breeding performance in late age associated with terminal investment or a decrease due to either life-history trade-offs between current breeding and future survival or decreased efficiency at old age. Age variation in several life-history traits has been detected in a number of species, and demographic performances of individuals in a given year are influenced by their reproductive state the previous year. Few studies have, however, examined state-dependent variation in life-history traits with aging, and they focused mainly on a dichotomy of successful versus failed breeding and non-breeding birds.

SUBMITTER: Pardo D 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC3936393 | biostudies-literature | 2014 Feb

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature