Costs of reproduction in a long-lived bird: Large clutch size is associated with low survival in the presence of a highly virulent disease
Fitness costs of reproduction are expected to be more pronounced when the environmental conditions deteriorate. We took advantage of a natural experiment to investigate the costs of reproduction among common eiders (Somateria mollissima) nesting at a site in the Arctic, where an avian cholera epizoo...
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Online Access: | https://ir.library.carleton.ca/pub/13557 https://doi.org/10.1098/rsbl.2008.0704 |
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ftcarletonunivir:oai:carleton.ca:13557 2023-05-15T15:06:10+02:00 Costs of reproduction in a long-lived bird: Large clutch size is associated with low survival in the presence of a highly virulent disease Descamps, S. (Sébastien) Gilchrist, H.G. (Hugh Grant) Bêty, J. (Joël) Buttler, E.I. (E. Isabel) Forbes, M. (Mark) 2009-04-23 https://ir.library.carleton.ca/pub/13557 https://doi.org/10.1098/rsbl.2008.0704 en eng https://ir.library.carleton.ca/pub/13557 doi:10.1098/rsbl.2008.0704 Biology Letters vol. 5 no. 2, pp. 278-281 Avian cholera Clutch size Common eider Reproductive effort Survival info:eu-repo/semantics/article 2009 ftcarletonunivir https://doi.org/10.1098/rsbl.2008.0704 2022-02-06T21:48:59Z Fitness costs of reproduction are expected to be more pronounced when the environmental conditions deteriorate. We took advantage of a natural experiment to investigate the costs of reproduction among common eiders (Somateria mollissima) nesting at a site in the Arctic, where an avian cholera epizootic appeared at different magnitudes. We tested the predictions that larger reproductive effort (clutch size) is associated with lower survival or breeding probability the following year, and that this relationship was more pronounced under heightened exposure to the disease. Our results indicate that large clutch sizes were associated with lower survival of female eider ducks, but only when there was heightened exposure to avian cholera, as indexed by eider mortality on site. No cost was observed when cholera was absent or when lesser exposure was evident. This supports the hypothesis that fitness costs of high reproductive effort are higher under unfavourable conditions such as a disease epizootic, and further indicates that being a conservative breeder can increase survival probability, given the presence of a highly virulent disease. Article in Journal/Newspaper Arctic Common Eider Somateria mollissima Carleton University's Institutional Repository Arctic Biology Letters 5 2 278 281 |
institution |
Open Polar |
collection |
Carleton University's Institutional Repository |
op_collection_id |
ftcarletonunivir |
language |
English |
topic |
Avian cholera Clutch size Common eider Reproductive effort Survival |
spellingShingle |
Avian cholera Clutch size Common eider Reproductive effort Survival Descamps, S. (Sébastien) Gilchrist, H.G. (Hugh Grant) Bêty, J. (Joël) Buttler, E.I. (E. Isabel) Forbes, M. (Mark) Costs of reproduction in a long-lived bird: Large clutch size is associated with low survival in the presence of a highly virulent disease |
topic_facet |
Avian cholera Clutch size Common eider Reproductive effort Survival |
description |
Fitness costs of reproduction are expected to be more pronounced when the environmental conditions deteriorate. We took advantage of a natural experiment to investigate the costs of reproduction among common eiders (Somateria mollissima) nesting at a site in the Arctic, where an avian cholera epizootic appeared at different magnitudes. We tested the predictions that larger reproductive effort (clutch size) is associated with lower survival or breeding probability the following year, and that this relationship was more pronounced under heightened exposure to the disease. Our results indicate that large clutch sizes were associated with lower survival of female eider ducks, but only when there was heightened exposure to avian cholera, as indexed by eider mortality on site. No cost was observed when cholera was absent or when lesser exposure was evident. This supports the hypothesis that fitness costs of high reproductive effort are higher under unfavourable conditions such as a disease epizootic, and further indicates that being a conservative breeder can increase survival probability, given the presence of a highly virulent disease. |
format |
Article in Journal/Newspaper |
author |
Descamps, S. (Sébastien) Gilchrist, H.G. (Hugh Grant) Bêty, J. (Joël) Buttler, E.I. (E. Isabel) Forbes, M. (Mark) |
author_facet |
Descamps, S. (Sébastien) Gilchrist, H.G. (Hugh Grant) Bêty, J. (Joël) Buttler, E.I. (E. Isabel) Forbes, M. (Mark) |
author_sort |
Descamps, S. (Sébastien) |
title |
Costs of reproduction in a long-lived bird: Large clutch size is associated with low survival in the presence of a highly virulent disease |
title_short |
Costs of reproduction in a long-lived bird: Large clutch size is associated with low survival in the presence of a highly virulent disease |
title_full |
Costs of reproduction in a long-lived bird: Large clutch size is associated with low survival in the presence of a highly virulent disease |
title_fullStr |
Costs of reproduction in a long-lived bird: Large clutch size is associated with low survival in the presence of a highly virulent disease |
title_full_unstemmed |
Costs of reproduction in a long-lived bird: Large clutch size is associated with low survival in the presence of a highly virulent disease |
title_sort |
costs of reproduction in a long-lived bird: large clutch size is associated with low survival in the presence of a highly virulent disease |
publishDate |
2009 |
url |
https://ir.library.carleton.ca/pub/13557 https://doi.org/10.1098/rsbl.2008.0704 |
geographic |
Arctic |
geographic_facet |
Arctic |
genre |
Arctic Common Eider Somateria mollissima |
genre_facet |
Arctic Common Eider Somateria mollissima |
op_source |
Biology Letters vol. 5 no. 2, pp. 278-281 |
op_relation |
https://ir.library.carleton.ca/pub/13557 doi:10.1098/rsbl.2008.0704 |
op_doi |
https://doi.org/10.1098/rsbl.2008.0704 |
container_title |
Biology Letters |
container_volume |
5 |
container_issue |
2 |
container_start_page |
278 |
op_container_end_page |
281 |
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1766337821170204672 |