Males do not senesce faster in large herbivores with highly seasonal rut

Tidière, Morgane; Gaillard, Jean‐Michel; Müller, Dennis; Lackey, Laurie Bingaman; Giménez, Olivier; Clauss, Marcus; Lemaître, Jean‐François

doi:10.1016/j.exger.2014.11.003

Cited by 8 publications

(7 citation statements)

References 55 publications

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“…Such a treatment is timely, as the predominance of long-term studies focussed on polygynous mammals has led to the conclusion that divergent ageing rates between the sexes are typically driven by sex differences in the intensity of intrasexual competition (Beirne, Delahay, & Young, 2015;Lemaitre, Gaillard, Pemberton, Clutton-Brock, & Nussey, 2014;Nussey et al, 2009). However, while this assertion might hold generally, we should not expect this to be the case in all species (Lemaître & Gaillard, 2012;Tidière et al, 2014) as there are likely to be other aspects of demography and life history that are also important in affecting how males and females allocate resources to somatic maintenance, survival and reproduction across the lifespan.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 98%

“…Yet, not all studies that have looked for sex differences in polygynous species have found them (Tidière et al, 2014(Tidière et al, , 2015Toïgo & Gaillard, 2003), and more generally, the evidence for a direct role of sexual selection on rates of ageing is equivocal (Bonduriansky, Maklakov, Zajitschek, & Brooks, 2008;Graves, 2007;Maklakov, Bonduriansky, & Brooks, 2009). This is likely because males and females can compete in different ways, the traits involved can entail different costs, and might also be expressed at different stages of lifespan (Clutton-Brock, 1983;Ralls & Mesnick, 2009;Stockley & Bro-Jørgensen, 2011;Tompkins & Anderson, 2019).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Sex‐independent senescence in a cooperatively breeding mammal

Thorley

Duncan

Sharp

et al. 2020

Journal of Animal Ecology

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Researchers studying mammals have frequently interpreted earlier or faster rates of ageing in males as resulting from polygyny and the associated higher costs of reproductive competition. Yet, few studies conducted on wild populations have compared sex‐specific senescence trajectories outside of polygynous species, making it difficult to make generalized inferences on the role of reproductive competition in driving senescence, particularly when other differences between males and females might also contribute to sex‐specific changes in performance across lifespan. Here, we examine age‐related variation in body mass, reproductive output and survival in dominant male and female meerkats, Suricata suricatta. Meerkats are socially monogamous cooperative breeders where a single dominant pair virtually monopolizes reproduction in each group and subordinate group members help to rear offspring produced by breeders. In contrast to many polygynous societies, we find that neither the onset nor the rate of senescence in body mass or reproductive output shows clear differences between males and females. Both sexes also display similar patterns of age‐related survival across lifespan, but unlike most wild vertebrates, survival senescence (increases in annual mortality with rising age) was absent in dominants of both sexes, and as a result, the fitness costs of senescence were entirely attributable to declines in reproductive output from mid‐ to late‐life. We suggest that the potential for intrasexual competition to increase rates of senescence in females—who are hormonally masculinized and frequently aggressive—is offset by their ability to maintain longer tenures of dominance than males, and that these processes when combined lead to similar patterns of senescence in both sexes. Our results stress the need to consider the form and intensity of sexual competition as well as other sex‐specific features of life history when investigating the operation of senescence in wild populations.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 98%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Sex‐independent senescence in a cooperatively breeding mammal

Thorley

Duncan

Sharp

et al. 2020

Journal of Animal Ecology

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“…Comparative studies interested in such questions have notably focused mostly on longevity and, in a few instances, on actuarial senescence rate, without considering a possible impact in terms of timing of senescence (but see Tidière et al. [Table ] for the absence of relationship between the onset of senescence and length of the mating season). Recently, a wide diversity of senescence patterns has been described in the living world (Nussey et al.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Restricting the analyses on the range between six and nine years of age as performed in a previous study using ISIS data (Tidière et al. ), and adding median longevity as a covariate in the analysis to correct for variation among species, allowed considering more species (59 vs. 56 species when using the rate between six and twelve years of age) but did not change the results (Table S7).…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…), and a linear rate of senescence between well‐defined cut‐off ages (Tidière et al. ), for each sex. We investigated whether increasing species‐specific resource allocation in sexually selected traits leads to increasing mortality and actuarial senescence in males on both an absolute scale and a scale relative to females.…”

Section: Survey Of Comparative Analyses Investigating the Relationshimentioning

confidence: 99%

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Does sexual selection shape sex differences in longevity and senescence patterns across vertebrates? A review and new insights from captive ruminants

et al. 2015

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In most mammals, both sexes display different survival patterns, often involving faster senescence in males. Being under intense sexual competition to secure mating opportunities, males of polygynous species allocate resources to costly behaviors and conspicuous sexual traits, which might explain these observed differences in longevity and senescence patterns. However, comparative studies performed to date have led to conflicting results. We aimed to resolve this problem by first reviewing case studies of the relationship between the strength of sexual selection and age-specific survival metrics. Then, we performed a comprehensive comparative analysis to test whether such relationships exist among species of captive ruminants. We found that the strength of sexual selection negatively influenced the onset of actuarial senescence in males, with males senescing earlier in polygynous than in monogamous species, which led to reduced male longevity in polygynous species. Moreover, males of territorial species senesced earlier but slower, and have a shorter longevity than males of species displaying other mating tactics. We detected little influence of the strength of sexual selection on the rate of actuarial senescence. Our findings demonstrate that the onset of actuarial senescence, rather than its rate, is a side effect of physiological mechanisms linked to sexual selection, and potentially accounts for observed differences in longevity.

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High reproductive effort is associated with decreasing mortality late in life in captive ruffed lemurs

Tidière

Lemaître

Douay³

et al. 2017

American J Primatol

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Evolutionary theories of senescence predict that a high allocation to reproduction during early life should have long-term deleterious consequences on future reproduction or survival because individuals have to face an energy allocation trade-off between reproductive effort and the maintenance of body condition. Using a high-quality dataset from 1,721 red ruffed lemurs (RRL, Varecia rubra) and 3,637 black and white ruffed lemurs (BWRM, V. variegata) living in captivity, we tested the existence of a trade-off between reproductive effort and late-life survival after accounting for possible confounding effects of natal environmental conditions. We report clear evidence of actuarial senescence (i.e., the decline of annual survival with increasing age) in both sexes and for both species of ruffed lemurs. RRL had a lower baseline mortality and senesced faster than BWRL, resulting in similar distributions of longevities for both species. No between-sex difference was observed in any species. Lastly, a higher reproductive effort was positively associated with an increase of survival late in life, and thereby an increased longevity. These findings indicate that individual quality rather than trade-off drives the association between reproductive success and survival pattern among individual lemurs of both species in the protected environment provided by zoos. Lemurs are among the world's highest conservation priorities and better understanding factors influencing their longevity and actuarial senescence patterns should improve their conservation.

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Males do not senesce faster in large herbivores with highly seasonal rut

Cited by 8 publications

References 55 publications

Sex‐independent senescence in a cooperatively breeding mammal

Sex‐independent senescence in a cooperatively breeding mammal

Does sexual selection shape sex differences in longevity and senescence patterns across vertebrates? A review and new insights from captive ruminants

High reproductive effort is associated with decreasing mortality late in life in captive ruffed lemurs

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